June Perkins was born to a Bush Mekeo mother, and Australian father in Port Moresby. She grew up in Tasmania from the age of one. She works with many forms of artistic expression: writing, poetry, photography, digital storytelling, blogging, video documentary and education.
Her themes include: nature, environment, creativity, courage, cultural diversity, family, childhood, renewal, music, and the spaces she lives in. She is a freelance writer, moderator, tutor, community educator, blogger, and is now a tutor (mentoring Indigenous creative writing students at two universities.)
She spent nearly a decade living in Far North Queensland, and was mesmerised by its natural beauty, intrigued by its inhabitants and learnt some wisdom through its distinctive weather and people.
She has previously written many short non fiction pieces for ABC Open, and ABC Open’s award winning Aftermath project, and worked as an invited editor on the special project 500 words.
In 2011- 2013, she produced the book, After Yasi: Finding the Smile Within . She is working to both traditionally and independently publish. Her writing fosters a love of poetry, nature, and music for children and families. She has several other books in progress, including a couple of novels and some picture books.
At the end of 2015, June won an Australian Society of Authors Emerging Writing Mentorship to work on one of her picture book manuscripts during 2016. She completed that and now has several picture books reading for pitching to publishers and several other texts in development including her first Young Adults Novel.
June presented at the Big Draw (2016), and in (2017) presented at the Sandcliffe Writer’s Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival and Boonah Environment festival. She has presented workshops at bookshops, libraries, schools and exhibitions.
In 2017, she presented her poetry and photographs in the Illumine exhibition which she assisted in curating and her first paid overseas publication of a photograph happened. She has several writing and multiarts projects in progress.
CONTACT: gumbootspearlzATgmail.com (at symbol not placed to avoid robots)
Profiles
Interviews
Five Fantastic Facts with the Young Authors Academy
Interview with Queensland Writer’s Centre
Interview with Ali Stegert on Spilling Ink
