Olive Alicia Ades Pell (29 October 1903 – 23 January 2002) was an Australian librarian and poet.

Life and career

Olive Pell was born in

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

, Western Australia on 29 October 1903. She was educated at

St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls , motto_translation = Lord Direct Us , established = , type = Independent single-sex and co-educational early learning, primary, and secondary day and boarding school , denomination = Anglican , educational_authority = WA Department ...

in Perth from 1916 to 1918. She joined the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

as a librarian in 1942 and remained in the role for 27 years. She joined the Western Australian branch of the

Fellowship of Australian Writers The Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) was established in Sydney in 1928, with the aim of bringing writers together and promoting their interests. The organisation played a key role in the establishment of the Australian Society of Authors in ...

in 1940 and served as president in 1969–1970. Her contribution to that organisation was recognised by the award of honorary life membership in 1979. Pell's poetry was published in the ''Jindyworobak Anthology'' for 1944, 1945, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1952 and 1953. "Monte Bello" was her first poem to be published in '' The Bulletin.'' It was subsequently selected from 1,000 contributions for inclusion in ''Australia Writes: An Anthology'' (1953) and later appeared in ''The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry'' (2017). Pell died on 23 January 2002 in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia. Her papers are held in the

State Library of Western Australia The State Library of Western Australia is a research, education, reference and public lending library located in the Perth Cultural Centre in Perth, Western Australia. It is a portfolio agency of the Western Australia Department of Culture and t ...

Selected works

Poetry

* ''Gold to Win'', Hawthorn Press, 1964 * ''I'd Rather Be a Fig'', Hawthorn Press, 1977 * ''Patient Reaction'', WordWorks Express, 1991

Nonfiction

* ''Gold in the Veins: An autobiography of Olive Pell 1903–2002'', 2002

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pell, Olive 1903 births 2002 deaths Australian librarians Australian women poets 20th-century Australian poets People educated at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls