Penny Bingham has a background in academic writing but she has spent recent years studying the craft of creative non-fiction. She has recently completed the manuscript of her memoir and is currently exploring publication options.
Penny lives in Rutherglen, close to the NSW border. She is an active member of Canadian-based Memoir Writing Ink (MWI) and Beechworth U3A’s Writers’ Fellowship. In 2023, she attended an MWI writing retreat in Tuscany. Excerpts from her memoir appear in an anthology entitled 'Soul Mates', published by Disruptive Publishing in 2024.
Penny’s long career in education offered exciting opportunities as a literacy and curriculum consultant with the Western Australian Department of Education and a stint writing a dance program to complement the workshops of a dance in education company. She has been a practicum supervisor for Murdoch University and tutor in literacy development for B.Ed students at Notre Dame University in Fremantle. She has presented at education conferences both nationally and internationally and spent a year in Fiji, writing curriculum for the Teachers College upgrade of its primary teacher qualification from certificate to diploma status. Her classroom practice took her from the jarrah and karri forests of SW WA to the remote mining town of Tom Price in the Pilbara.
On retiring from teaching, Penny completed a Diploma of Dementia Care through UTas and spent three years, pre-covid, as an educator for Dementia Australia.
She is now a dementia advocate. She facilitates a fortnightly Memory Café in Chiltern and, on request, delivers dementia awareness programs in NE Victoria. She recently completed ten years as facilitator of a support group for carers of people living with a dementia diagnosis. She serves on the board and volunteers for the local care facility.
When she’s not reading or writing, Penny enjoys spending time with her beautiful grandchildren, gardening, sewing, handcraft, listening to music and attending live theatre.