Joy Lubawy Writes

Joy Lubawy has been writing for thirty years, focusing on texts for Early Childhood Educators, drawing on her years as a teacher and later as a part-time academic/consultant. She wrote memoirs for her family.

The need to write had been a familiar companion since she was a teenager, far from home and homesick, and more recently when her husband showed signs of dementia. Facing a feeling of helplessness and occasional depression and rage, she set about finding a way to turn her life around.

An invitation to write a monologue for Women of the Riverina gave her a starting point; then a friend challenged her to write a short play. She answered that with two plays that have been performed on the stage in her hometown, Wagga Wagga, by SoAct. Another is almost polished, ready to enter this year’s play fest competition.

A friend, and former English Literature lecturer, then put the challenge to write a poem at her feet, and almost casually suggested she might write a novel. That was all she needed to begin this new adventure.

The depression and rage disappeared as she found the young girl inside her that always loved to write, and, remarkably, her husband’s dementia is being controlled, and he is doing very well.

“Writing is a miracle; it stopped me from being an angry, resentful person that I despised,” she said. “Searching within, researching, using my imagination and using almost forgotten skills has given me a new life, given me hope.”

Now, as her 80th birthday appears on the horizon, not here yet but visible, she looks forward to many adventures ahead.