About – Pamela Cook

Pamela is a writer and teacher whose love of words began as a child and developed into a career when she became a High School English Teacher. Her love affair with books and ideas deepened and in 1999 she enrolled in a Masters Course in Creative Writing at UNSW.  She became so focused on writing that she swapped the chalkboard for a keyboard and is now a full time writer.

Her time is divided between writing and teaching creative writing at the St George and Sutherland Shire Community College. In teaching writing to adults she has realised the truth in the old adage that teaching is the best way of learning. Information on Pamela’s workshops  is available on her website at www.justwrite.net.au

Pamela  has completed a wide range of writing courses. These include numerous courses at the NSW Writers Centre, one of which was a year long course, First Page to First Draft, with Jan Cornall, as well as poetry writing classes and workshops with Kate Llewelyn and Joyce Kornblatt. For the last five years she has shared the creative journey with twelve other writers as a member of The Writers’ Dozen (www.thewritersdozen.com)

Pamela is currently completing her first novel, Shallow Crossing, set in Nepal, which explores what it means to be a wife, a mother and a daughter and what happens when those roles no longer exist. Ultimately it explores what it means to be yourself.

Published works:

• Closure, Stormy Weather (both short stories) and fifteen (a poem) in the anthology Better Than Chocolate (published by The Writers’ Dozen, 2008)
• Reflection, a poem in page seventeen  (Issue 4 2006)
• beginnings and a kiss goodnight, poems in First Breath, Poems on Pregnancy, Birth and Motherhood (ed  Vee Malnar, Ana Key Media 2004)
• The First Cicada, a poem in Muse, Canberra Arts Magazine (March 2003)
•  The Day of the Chooks, memoir, in Central Coast Kaleidoscope 2003. This piece was awarded first place in the 2003 Central Coast Writer’s Festival Competition, memoir section.

When Pamela isn’t writing or teaching she enjoys her role as the Students Helping Students Coordinator for the fantastic not for profit organisation Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org) which builds schools and libraries, and provides educational scholarships for girls in developing countries.

And when she isn’t doing any of the above she’s riding her horse, Morocco.