Frances Rouse

Frances Rouse was born and currently lives in Toowoomba, Queensland. Her poetry has been widely published in Australian and overseas journals for many years. A number of her short stories have also appeared in print, including one broadcast on Radio Denmark three times. Two of her radio plays have also been broadcast on ABC Radio National. She received grants from Arts Queensland in ’93 and ’97. The one-act version of her play ‘Counting Icebergs’ (Australian Script Centre Collection #4) received a reading at the 4th International Hawaii Conference of Arts and Humanities (2006) and subsequently has been selected by the English language Little Globe Theatre, (Kirovohrad, Ukraine) to tour the globe in the wake of Cook’s voyages (from June 2008) to museums, historic houses, university drama departments and festivals. It will be directed by Barbara Damashek, three-time Tony Award nominee and 2005 Bay Area Critic’s Circle Award winner for Direction. Frances has received a RADF Arts Queensland grant to travel to Ukraine for rehearsals and to supervise the making of the costumes which she designed. These are loosely based on a series of paintings, ‘The Charts of Mrs Cook’ - 18th century dresses exploring Cook’s voyages - many of which are now in the collections of the State Library of New South Wales, and the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney. Frances continues to work on her poetry and other creative writing projects.

Photo of playwright courtesy The Toowoomba Chronicle.