Valerie Volk – July 1 2018

Dry July is an alcohol free month to raise funds for people affected by cancer.

Valerie holds a BA (Hons), Diploma of Education, Master of Education, MA in Creative Writing and PhD in the field of Gifted Education. Her two verse plays were written and produced during her time as an undergraduate. Valerie went on to teach in high schools and lecture at tertiary institutions. Her interest in gifted education drew her to the Future Problem Solving Program, of which she became one of the Australian directors and a member of the International Board of Trustees. Valerie’s publications were mainly academic until her husband’s cancer diagnosis when she began writing poetry. Her other poetry works include the verse novel, A Promise of Peaches, and the collections Even Grimmer Tales: Not for the Faint-hearted and Flowers & Forebears. Valerie travels extensively and has published three ‘poem a day’ books from her tours of Spain, Ireland and South America, as well as the poetry record of her time in Vietnam and Cambodia, Indochina Days. Valerie has also written one book of prose, Bystanders, which gives a new perspective to Biblical stories as 15 minor characters tell their tales.

In Due Season: Poems of Love and Loss
Pantaenus Press, 2009; ISBN 9780975240151
When Noel Volk was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, there was no anticipation of his death nine months later. In Due Season is both a chronicle of a year of great sorrow and great joy, and a recollection of Noel and Valerie’s lives together. It is also a tribute to a remarkable man, and the richness of the marriage they shared. The poetry is varied in both form and mood, ranging from formal and measured sonnets and rhymed poems, to the more anguished raw emotion of the free-verse poems. Throughout, there is a personal tone which makes this poetry accessible to all readers.
‘No matter our colour or creed, our intellect or status, grief will humble, level and unite us. Yet in our holding of the pain and the love in the same moment we have the potential to be transformed. Valerie Volk, in her poems of grief, offers a voice to the strange confusion that confronts each of us. It is her gift to us.’ – Judith Murray, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of Queensland

Passion Play
Wakefield Press, 2013; ISBN 9781743052662
A politician, a cooking contest winner, a troubled clergyman, a much-married socialite, a TV evangelist – what could they have in common? Why do they (and half a million others) travel to Oberammergau, the small German village that has staged a passion play every tenth year since 1634? In a four-day bus trip, very different people are drawn together for diverse reasons, similar to the varied group whom Chaucer brought to life in his Canterbury Tales. But these travellers do not tell invented stories to entertain each other; they reveal to us with raw and often painful honesty their own lives and motives.
‘This compelling travel narrative always bespeaks character, rather than landscape or hotel vestibule. Volk’s swerve away from Chaucer creates for us a linking group of tourists, animated by their approach to a religious festival in Europe. Their story-telling, in her fluent verse, is utterly persuasive.’ – Chris Wallace-Crabbe AM, Emeritus Professor in the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne and former Chair, Australian Poetry