Author Spotlight: Wendy Noble

Wendy Noble lives and works in Gawler with her husband Jeff, but also has strong ties to Kapunda. Jeff & Wendy’s daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren all live and work in the town.

Wendy always wanted to be a writer but didn’t get serious about it until after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Realising that nothing in life is certain, Wendy decided she’d better stop dreaming and finally get on with writing.

She attended several workshops and eventually enrolled in a Master of Arts Creative Writing course. Wendy says it was the best thing she could have done! One of the lecturers on the course was celebrated children’s author Rosanne Hawke – Wendy and Rosanne are now firm friends.

As well as having short stories and articles published in various magazines in Australia and America, Wendy is also a reviewer of both Children’s and Young Adult’s books for Good Reading Magazine.

Wendy has also been a guest lecturer at Tabor-Adelaide College and Gawler TAFE and has led writer’s workshops for the University of the Third Age, various conferences and the Town of Gawler Library.

In 2017, the first two books of Wendy’s Beast-speaker trilogy – Beast-speaker: The Flight and Beast-speaker: Dragon Friend – were published by Stone Table Books. The third book – Beast-speaker: Dragon Home – was released in September 2019.

The Beast-speaker books were inspired by both a documentary on the rehabilitation of child soldiers and a writing exercise during one of Rosanne’s classes. Together they sparked Wendy’s imagination and the Beast-speaker fantasies came to into being.

The story follows two young friends, Seeger and Boyd, as they’re kidnapped by an agent of the warmongering city of Midrash and forced to become soldiers. Boyd is sent to the barracks and Seeger goes to work in the stables, caring mainly for camels and dragons. Both young people endure suffering and despair. Will they ever go home? And, if and when they do return, will they be able to reintegrate into their old life now that they’re damaged young people?

Although it sounds as if the trilogy is a grim read, don’t let that daunt you! There’s also plenty of humour, warmth and hope scattered throughout the tale.

All three of Wendy’s books are now available from your local library.