Helen Lyne
writer, spoken word poet
Welcome to my website.
My stories and novels are set in my favourite travel destinations and in the cities where I’ve taught: Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, Winnipeg on the Canadian prairies and Reims in the Champagne area of France. I write fiction, work occasionally in movies and live near one of Sydney’s Northern Beaches with Caterina, my feline muse, who ghost-writes my performance poetry.
Short Story Collections
AVAILABLE NOW
Turnabouts
My collection of short stories is available from Desire Books & Records in Manly.
A young teacher has noxious role models.
A baby is removed from his sixteen-year-old mother.
A young man doesn’t know how to come out to his grandmother.
A woman abseils out of an abusive relationship.
A cat thwarts an old woman’s inheritance hungry relatives.
An aging woman seeks advice from a sex worker.
Themes include inheritance, domestic violence, workplace inequalities for women, the effect of poverty on a child, intergenerational politics, love and joyful infidelity. Some stories are set in schools. Partners, parents, pupils, teachers, colleagues, neighbours and intelligent cats achieve turnabouts in their lives with courage, ingenuity, insight and wit.
Turnabouts appears on the Society of Women Writers NSW website and has been shortlisted in their National Writing Competition, Members Book Awards, 2026.
AVAILABLE NOW
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
An elderly dying woman is taken surfing by her carer.
A young Australian traveller receives a marriage proposal at an oasis in Algeria.
Disarming a violent student inspires a teacher to leave her abusive husband.
A grandmother-to-be rejoices in her first one-night stand.
The people in these and other stories contend with increasing age, bullying by students, teachers and parents, the impossibility of some relationships and the desolation that can occur within marriage. They kick over the rock of life’s disappointments and discover freedom, confidence, joy, love and well-satisfied lust.
See the review by Paige Turner on page 60 of the Sydney Northern Beaches magazine, The Tawny Frogmouth.
The Society of Women Writers NSW magazine, Women’s Ink! Spring/Summer 2022 edition featured a review by Pip Griffin. View it here.
Love, Disappointment and Other Joys of Life received a Commended in the Society of Women Writers NSW, National Writing Competition, Members Book Awards, 2022
Performance Poems
Humans and other creatures in my performance poems all have attitude. Whether they be a four-year-old, a seventy-four-year-old, a koala or a fly, each has a thing or two to say about life and the audience had better listen up! You can read some of my work on my Poems page page.
My three chapbooks of performance poems are available from Desire Books in Manly and from me at the venues where I perform.
Spotlight On
I enjoyed speaking with fellow writer Zita Fogarty for Writing NSW’s Spotlight On series. We talked about my writing life, my recently published short-story collection Turnabouts, and why I’ve never finished a poem. You can read it here.
If you explore this website you’ll find extracts from works that I enjoyed writing and that I hope you’ll enjoy reading. Get in touch with me if you have any questions or would like to see more of my writing or live events.