FSN - Freo Life

Ilaria Mazzoleni is the General Editor of Transect of Coexistence: Inquiry into Nature, Art, and Habitat , a recently published book that collects the outcomes of a decade-long collaboration between scholars and creatives, who, through an artist and researcher-in-residence program, have explored current environmental challenges aiming for inclusive objectives at both the global and local levels. I...

Fraser Maywood is the Chair of Sustainable Energy Now, a non profit formed in 2006, that advocates for how Western Australia can make a swift and orderly transition to clean renewable electricity safely, reliably, and affordably with commercially proven technologies. Fraser has over 40 years of international experience in the Oil & Gas, mining and power sectors. Roles have included engineering...

Josh Wilson is the Member for Fremantle in the Federal Parliament. Since July this year, he has also been the Assistant Minister (to lead Minister, Chris Bowen) for Climate Change and Energy. In August this year, at the Australian Labor Party’s National Conference in Brisbane, Josh Wilson voiced his opposition to Australia’s signing up to the AUKUS deal with the US and the UK, involving the acquis...

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes has won the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award for የተስፋ ፈተና / Trials of Hope .  Written in English with accompanying Amharic poetry and prose, Yirga has written about his journey from boy shepherd in Ethiopia to human rights academic at Curtin University, Western Australia   Yirga’s background is as a writer, researcher and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia, who now lives with...

Sophie McNeill is probably best known as a television reporter for the ABC’s investigative program Four Corners and as a Middle East Correspondent for ABC News delivering prime time reports from Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Turkey and Gaza. Sophie has twice been awarded Australian Young TV Journalist of the Year and in 2010 won a Walkley Award for her investigation int...

When a young Holden Sheppard realised blokes weren’t meant to talk about feelings, he began to write stories instead. Twenty years later, the boy from Geraldton, Western Australia is a multi-award winning author – with a treasured black ute! Holden’s debut novel Invisible Boys achieved both commercial and critical success, winning many accolades including the WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Wri...

Linda Wayman has a background in journalism, marketing, public affairs, communications, business development, and commercial and business leadership, with an eclectic mix of government and commercial knowledge. For nearly 15 years Linda was Southern Cross Austereo’s WA General Manager of two Perth radio stations, Mix94.5 and Hit92.9. Currently, Linda is the principal of Wayman Advisory, chair of C...

As Senior Environmental Advisor for Fremantle Ports, Rebecca James is focused on issues such as marine environmental protection, decarbonisation and embedding circular economy principles. She is passionate about bringing relevant stakeholders together and sharing knowledge to collaborate on innovative solutions. When it comes to waste, Rebecca has a track record of challenging the status quo. In t...

Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Richard King gained an MA in Literary History and Cultural Discourse from the University of Sussex, England, before moving to London to work in bookselling and develop his own writing career. Since moving to Australia in 2001, he has been published in a range of newspapers and magazines, including The Australian, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Indepe...

25 years ago, BENANG from the heart took the Australian publishing world by storm and made Kim Scott , a household name and a pathfinding Australian indigenous author.  His novel swept the awards season, winning the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award Fiction Prize in 1999, the esteemed Miles Franklin Award in 2000, and the Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2001, as well being shortlisted for the Que...

Sarah Booth has a broad resume with a central focus: community. She currently acts as General Manager of Fremantle-based urban-renewal organisation, Spacemarket, and as Community Development Lead with property groups, Hesperia and Fini. To put it simply, in the language of the 70s, Sarah is a Mover and a Shaker. She gets things going. She asks questions. She doesn’t rest. And she loves Fremantle i...

Gemma, another Fremantle connected creative, is a talented, and busy, musician, bandleader and composer. And to prove it, she, with the Gemma Farrell Quintet, has a new album – her 9th and the Quintet’s 3rd – titled Electronic, coming out on 3 May 2024. While Gemma typically performs on all four saxes, she has also mastered a more unusual instrument called the EWI, short for Electronic Wind Instru...

Gerry MacGill is so well known around Freo that he hardly needs a last name. ‘Gerry’ is usually a sufficient reference. People will know immediately who you are referring to. But if you are still unsure whether the fellow in the group is Gerry, you’ll know it’s him once you hear the Geordie burr. Born in Wallsend, right next to Newcastle, England, up there in the North where ships used to be built...

High school curricula around the country today engage in a degree of Truth Telling, and teach non indigenous kids what their parents and grandparents often only heard hinted at – that First Nations peoples around Australia’s frontiers were often mercilessly killed at the hands of European settlers as the country was ‘opened up’ following British colonisation. The 1834 so called ‘Battle of Pinjarra...

Jo Smith is Artistic Director of CircusWA – the Fremantle-based youth circus arts centre. Throughout the 90’s she worked between Sichuan-China, Darwin and Perth studying and teaching sociology and linguistics while developing an arts practice in Live Art (performance installation). Her art practice was informed by her academic research and used site, material and the body to reflect these ideas. I...

David Noakes has been involved in the Australian Film Industry at just about every level. And we’re pleased to say his film journey started here in Fremantle! These days, David is a Production Executive with FACB – First Australian Completion Bond Company. He has previously worked as a producer, film and TV business analyst, and film Investment Manager. In his younger days around Freo, David also...

Skip Lissiman was the port trimmer on Australian II on 26 September 1983, the day she momentously met her destiny and outmanoeuvred the US defender, Liberty, in the seventh and deciding race off Newport, Rhode Island to win the America’s Cup.  Skip kindly met our editor, Michael Barker, to discuss THAT day, reliving the last leg, what went into winning the America’s Cup, what victory meant to Aust...

Chemutai Glasheen is a teacher and an academic at Curtin University in Perth, and has a PhD in creative writing. She was brought up in Kenya and now lives in Australia. A book of her short stories, under the enticing title I Am the Mau & Other Stories, has just been published by Fremantle Press .  We couldn’t put the book down. We think ‘young adults’ - the apparent target audience - is too na...

In 1991, curious about the ways of humanity’s oldest continuous culture, Greg Campbell exited corporate life to live in the remote Kimberley region of Australia with a traditional Aboriginal elder and powerful maban (shaman), Lulu, and his people. Concerned about the state of the world and threats to the continuity of all life, Lulu asked Greg to work with him and the Goolarabooloo people on one b...

In this not-to-be-missed podcast interview, Michelle Blakeley explains to our Editor, Michael Barker, the origins of her My Homes 18 social dwellings project for older women in Congdon Street, North Fremantle that was officially opened last week . She tells what inspired her to undertake it, what has been involved in getting the project to GO, the project’s design features, how it will operate, an...

It’s only a couple months since Chrissie Maus took up the cudgels as the Chief Executive Officer of the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce in this, the Chamber’s 150th year. The Perth-born Ms Maus comes well credentialed as the former head of the largest retail and entertainment precinct in Australia – Melbourne’s Chapel Street. President of the Chamber, Mr Bartlett Lee observed of Chrissie on the anno...

Nicole Lockwood has a passion for sustainability and resilience building and the creation of thriving cities and communities equipped to embrace the challenges and opportunities of climate change and digital disruption. Which is just as well because she chairs Infrastructure WA, the Malka Foundation and Airbridge, is the Deputy Chair of the Green Building Council of Australia and a member of the b...

Dr Ed Fethers is well known as the Voice of Sailing in Western Australia. He could also be titled Dr Sailing . But that might be confusing because Ed is also a Dr Doctor , who has been practicing as a GP around Fremantle for many years. Ed also has his own radio show, Let’s Go Sailing on 91.3 FM where he gives a weekly wrap on local, national & international sailing with interviews, roving rep...

Jeremy Dawkins has spent a good deal for his professional life thinking about Australian cities, especially Fremantle. Perhaps it’s not to be marvelled at. His Great Great Grandfather, John Septimus Roe , produced the very first town plan for Fremantle, at the request of Governor James Stirling, following the founding of the British Swan River Colony in 1829. His Great Grandfather, CY O’Connor , d...

Lucky Oceans is so well known around Fremantle to anyone with even a passing interest in music that he hardly needs an introduction. He has played with many big names here in Australia and elsewhere. His work with the Zydecats around Freo is legendary. He’s also well known around the country for hosting the long running Radio National spot, Daily Planet where he helped improve the musical apprecia...