‘…enabling inclusion for people with additional needs is seen as increasingly valuable and supported,’ says Deborah Vanderwerp about her work as a scribe.
Deborah Vanderwerp is currently obtaining payment and/or pleasure as an educator, counsellor, writer and exam supervisor while she completes her graduate counselling studies. She’s also been an actor, musician, storyteller, poet and a teacher in drama, theatre studies, music, violin, life skills and sex education. She presently works part-time as a scribe.
My capacity to understand their way of putting words together for subjects that I am not qualified to teach, and to accurately write what was dictated at the rate they were able to dictate, and retain those words long enough to write them all down, was paramount.
Thuy On is the former Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025).
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
