Background

North Cottesloe Beach at sunset, looking south. Photo Emma Bladen, May, 2020

Emma has been selected to take part in the 2021 – 2023 Four Centres Emerging Writers’ Program at the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA, supported by the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, and administered by Fremantle Press

Journalism
Emma Bladen began writing in 1992 as a reporter for Post Newspapers in Subiaco.

Since then Emma’s career has included roles as a reporter, sub-editor, news editor, and editor, in New York, Sydney, and Dubai. Emma has written for and edited weekly, bi-weekly and daily publications in print, and online.

These publications included The Record Review in Bedford, New York, USA; the Macarthur Chronicle, the North Shore Times, the Manly Daily, the Canterbury-Bankstown Express, and the Mosman Daily in Sydney, Australia; plus Gulf News in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Emma also taught journalism for print and online to tertiary students enrolled at the Murdoch University campus in Dubai. 

Flash fiction
Emma began writing fiction while still immersed in the news industry. Her sci-fi flash fiction The Pick-Me-Up reached top five in the international 2013/2014 Fish Publishing Flash Fiction Prize, and was published in the 2014 Fish Anthology.

Her flash fiction Good Fluffy was named runner up in the international CrimeFest Flashbang 2016 competition. Her prize was to be published online with the other finalists and a place in a series of writing workshops at CrimeFest in Bristol, England.

And you can read Emma’s flash fiction The Little Lantern here.

Short fiction
Emma’s short story The Homing Pigeons won third prize in the 2021 Spilt Ink Prose and Poetry Writing Competition, run by the Fremantle based Out Of The Asylum writers’ group, of which she is a member.

Genre fiction
Emma is currently working on her first novel, which is women’s fiction, and two children’s chapter books.

Emma has lived in Perth, Texas, New York, Sydney, and Dubai, and is delighted to be home again in Perth, Western Australia, where she lives with her husband and two really annoying rescue cats named Tommi, and Barry.

Tommi, left, Barry, and Cyclops. Helping. Not.