Life — Poetry — Fiction
Welcome to Wattletales, tales from Australian anthropologist, blogger, poet and novelist Lindy Warrell.
Look around. Have fun.
Why wattletales? Well, the name mirrors my surname, and it hints at tattletales, which is fine as I do write about real life. Also, the wattle is an Australian national icon and is traditionally invaluable to First Nation peoples.
Why do I write? I have stories to tell.
Born in Melbourne in 1943, Lindy Warrell is a publican’s daughter who grew up and worked in hotels across Australia for many years. As a mature student and mother of three, she was awarded a PhD in social and cultural anthropology in 1990 from the University of Adelaide. She has lived and travelled extensively in South Asia and outback Australia for research and work.
Lindy’s latest novel, They Who Nicked the Sun, was released in May 2024. Her debut novel, The Publican’s Daughter, launched in April 2022. She is currently working on Call Me Marigold, a novella and posthumous memoir of an 81-year-old woman who could not rest in death until she understood life, as well as planning a new novel that deals with gaslighting, titled On Banksia Street.
Lindy’s most recent poetry collection, Dressed & Uploaded: Poem Stories, was published in 2023 as an ebook under her Imprint Wattletales Publishing, and you can download a free copy by clicking here. Her first collection, A Curious Mix in Free Verse, came out in 2022.
Other poems can be found on Watletales under the heading Poems and in most posts as well as online, in journals, and three Ginninderra Press chapbooks: Ol’ Girl Can Drive and Soft Toys For Grown-ups, 2018 and Life Blinks, 2020. Lindy’s earlier publications include academic articles, peer reviews, and art catalogue essays.
On retirement to the Fleurieu Peninsula, Lindy began writing creatively and taught Buddhist meditation and life writing for several years. She now lives in South Australia’s well-known beachside suburb, Glenelg. Until recently, she convened a poetry workshop, a poetry appreciation group and Mindfulness training at the Glenelg Community Centre. Click here for a post showcasing the poets and their poems.
She co-edited the 43rd Issue of Friendly Street Poets’ annual anthology, Alchemy 2019, and co-edited the Ochre Coast Poets anthology, Ochre, in 2014. In 2011 and 2012, Lindy regularly reviewed literary fiction and poetry collections for a South Australian literary journal, Wet Ink. In 2006, as the founding chair of Adelaide PEN, Lindy inaugurated PEN International’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer in Adelaide at the State Library of SA.
In 2016, Lindy founded TramsEnd Poets, a critique group that is still going strong in Glenelg. In 2021, Holdfast Bay Libraries invited the group to do an extended reading.
Lindy writes to provoke and give pleasure. She brings a rich and varied background to her poems and stories. Her blog explores ways to work with personal truth in poetry and fiction without betraying ourselves and others.
Learn more about Lindy in this recent 2024 online interview by Raj Kuma Subedi.
Here is a 2018 Writing Forums Interview. A few things have changed since then, but not the essentials.