Edwina Shaw is a writer of memoir, fiction and screenplays. She is also an editor, a mentor, a yoga teacher, a workshop and retreat facilitator and now an independent publisher with her imprint Red Backed Wren Publishing.
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Edwina Shaw has been writing and publishing in Australian and international literary journals and anthologies since 2002, including Asia Literary Review, Island, Hecate Griffith Literary Review, Within Without These Walls and Best Australian Stories 2014. Her most recent release is Queersland, an anthology of writing from queer Queenslanders, spanning 80+ years. This important collection from AndAlso Books was co-edited with Rod Goodbun and released in September 2025. A Guide Through Grief – First Aid for Your Heart and Soul. Practical Tools, Creative Activities and Yoga Exercises to help you move through the pain of loss was released independently in 2021. You can buy a print copy of both books HERE. Or in all good book stores.
Edwina is the commissioning and contributing editor of Bjelke Blues – Stories of Repression and Resistance in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s QLD 1968 – 1987 published by AndAlso Books in August 2019 – a collection of 45 essays, memoirs and fiction from people on the wrong side of the Bjelke-Petersen regime.
Edwina’s first book Thrill Seekers, based on her brother’s battle with adolescent-onset schizophrenia was released in the UK and throughout the English-speaking world through Ransom Publishing UK and was shortlisted for the 2012 NSW Premier’s UTS/Glenda Adam’s award for new writing. It was released as a new imprint through Raven Books UK in 2018.
Her children’s book In The Dark of Night – a ghost story – was released in 2016 by Raven Books UK and selected for the nationwide library promotion Summer Reading Club. Her feature film project “M”, based on the memoir Dear Madman she’s releasing in 2026 through AndAlso Books was awarded Screen QLD development funding.
Edwina teaches writing at the University of Queensland, and yoga, most recently to professional dance students at the Queensland University of Technology. She runs Relax and Write Retreats and facilitates workshops around the country that combine both yoga and writing. She is now a co-director of Transformational Writing Retreats with Kerstin Pilz with week-long retreats in Vietnam, Bali, Italy and Byron Bay.
Edwina has a background in education: from teaching in a maximum security Juvenile Justice Centre, to working with students with severe disabilities, to running her own private language school in Cambodia, teaching English as a second language to refugees in Australia and creative writing to Forgotten Australians. She has also written many features for Uplift Connect.
She teaches creative writing – using her unique blend of yoga techniques and free writing – in schools, libraries, at festivals, at the Queensland Writers Centre and in the community. See Speakers Ink for bookings.
The worst job she ever had was selling dagwood dogs (corn dogs) in Sideshow Alley, closely contested by her long stint as a house cleaner.
Edwina grew up in Joh Bjelke Petersen’s Brisbane during the seventies and eighties, but escaped to live in Kings Cross and Darlinghurst in Sydney, Leipzig in Germany, Singapore, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville in Cambodia. She is passionate about mental health, women’s issues, yoga, travel, the power of story as a tool for healing and compassion, and most of all about embracing a life of joy.
She lives happily in Sadliers Crossing in the heart of historical Ipswich in a beautiful old brick cottage built in 1864.
Edwina is available for speaking engagements and innovative workshops combining movement and writing, and specialised workshops for trauma and loss. Please book through Speakers Ink.
Edwina is also available for editorial advice, structural edits, proofreading, manuscript assessment and development, and writing mentorships. Please contact her through her CONTACT page for more information.
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Edwina Shaw 