Extract From Manjimup-Bridgetown Times. Wednesday, November 27, 2004.
Anjelica Smilovitis
Joanne Patmore from Highlands, Bridgetown, was one of the 50 finalists in the Best Australian Yarn
2024 competition.
Patmore said she was “surprised” to find out her short story Savage Daughter had been selected after
only taking writing up again after retirement.
Now 66, Patmore said the last time she wrote a short story was at Curtin University in 1976, while
studying to be a teacher.
While there, she was under the tutelage of Monica Elizabeth Jolley AO — an English-born Australian
writer who moved to WA in 1959.
Her early influence would later spark Patmore’s desire to be a writer.
“She must have been in her 50s then, and she’d only just started to get published and for things to take
off for her,” Patmore said.
“I put that in the back of my brain, and I thought it’s never too late. You can start if you’re in your 90s,
it’s never too late.”
Learning about The West Australian’s competition through her niece, she entered the short story,
reflecting life in the 1970s.
The theme highlights a “different” time for women in the South West and is “loosely” based on real
places and real stories using fictional characters,