Albany’s seasoned storyteller talks about her life of telling stories in print

Albany children’s author Dianne Wolfer has always loved reading books, but she found her passion for writing stories while backpacking through remote Nepal in her early 20s. “When I first went travelling after studying I was backpacking through Asia and went to a remote part of Nepal. I just kept getting story ideas of some of the interesting things I was seeing that I thought I could shape into stories or news articles,” she said. “So I did that and started writing short stories and sending them off to competitions. “Some had luck and won and then one turned into my first book.” Wolfer has called the south coast of WA home for more than 30 years, but in her younger years she lived in Melbourne, Bangkok and Albury. “I spent 10 years in Melbourne, then Dad got a job in Thailand for two years. It was very unusual to go from suburban Melbourne to Bangkok,” she said. “I went to an international school where I was thrust into a different world and culture, but it was really good for me because it taught me to look beyond the ’burbs of Melbourne and into different perspectives.” She went backpacking after college and lived in a remote part of western Nepal for almost a year, tutoring children. Her home was a mud-brick room with no electricity or running water. She would hike for an hour up a mountain to teach some of her students. The celebrated author has just released her 20th book, Munjed Al Muderis: From Refugee to Surgical Inventor, which is part of the Aussie STEM Stars series. Commissioned to write the book, Wolfer said she was honoured to be involved in the series. “I’ve never done creative non-fiction before so it was a good challenge,” she said. “I had to take his story, condense it, but still keep the essence so it was exciting for young readers.” Based in Sydney, Dr Al Muderis is an orthopaedic surgeon who has done pioneering work on prosthetics, especially on titanium devices. Dr Al Muderis was born in Iraq and became a surgeon under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Wolfer said she undertook copious amounts of research on the surgeon’s life. “The idea was that we got two two-hour meetings with our person but I only managed to get 20-minute phone calls with him because he was constantly in demand and was very busy,” she said. With a background in primary school teaching, Wolfer was naturally attracted to children’s literature. “I love the middle grade, so from Year 5-7 with children aged 10-12 — the classic children’s book age,” she said. “Young readers are very honest, and if they like your work they are very passionate and beautiful. “They write lovely letters ... it’s a beautiful job.” A lifelong bookworm, Wolfer wanted to be Silky from The Magic Faraway Tree when she was in primary school. Before that, she wanted to be the Muddle-Headed Wombat. Other favourite childhood books included The Sneetches, Bottersnikes and Gumbles, Anne of Green Gables, and basically any story with animals in it. Clearly that animal interest has never gone away, as Wolfer researched anthropomorphism in children’s literature for her PhD at the University of WA. This involved writing two novels — The Shark Caller, and The Dog With Seven Names. When the busy writer is not scribbling down an idea or stuck with her head in a book, she enjoys getting outside. “Albany is so beautiful so I just enjoy beach and bushwalking, walking the dog, travelling,” Wolfer said. “As part of my job I go to schools a lot. “This year I haven’t really travelled. For many of us I think it’s being a resetting of our balance — maybe I was running around too much, “I’ve enjoyed being home with more time to write rather than go out to schools as much, and I’ve been able to do more in Albany.” Wolfer is now busy working on three new children’s novels. “I just keep getting ideas and if I don’t write them down, they just go around my head and annoy me,” she said. “So the ones that stay, I know they need to be written.”