Biography

Gretchen Bernet-Ward lives in Brisbane, Australia. After graduating with honours from secretarial college, she typed and Pitman-shorthanded her way through a long line of wordy jobs at a time when everything was done on paper. Gretchen says “A real Pitman’s scribe will notice the discrepancy in the red pen in the image above” used for illustration purposes only, but the book is genuine.

After years of immersion in the sectors of travel, advertising, child-raising, tertiary studies and public library services, she finally surfaced to challenge her love of writing. She unleashed her own thoughts, turning them into words on an unsuspecting blog. Naturally the appropriate blog title Thoughts Become Words was too good to pass up.

A supporter of the Indigenous Literacy and Australian Koala foundations, Gretchen joined two writers groups, one real and one virtual, and attends writing courses, workshops, conferences, pitches and author talks. She was Shortlisted in Jen Storer’s Scribbles Creative Writing Awards 2018, and secured Third Place in Creative Kids Tales 2016 competition Aliens Animals and Amazing Places with “Dragon Daisies”. In 2019 Gretchen won Third Place and a Highly Commended in Estelle Pinney Short Story Competition run by Society of Women Writers Queensland—-see below. Gretchen’s published work is unremarkable, unless press releases and strongly worded letters to the editor count, but in 2019 she was delighted to see her Camel Farm visit featured online and in print with Your Time Magazine. She frequently switches genres for writing competitions in the hope that one day…

Gretchen states that she reads anything and despite receiving too many newsletters from bookshops and publishers, she reads them all. It takes her mind off peppermint chocolate.

In the dropdown Archive List, Gretchen’s posts reflect her real life, fictional stories, book reviews and a growing compilation of viewpoints.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward