Deborah Westbury has been a familiar voice in Australian poetry since her work began appearing in Australian literary magazines and in various anthologies throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. Mouth to Mouth, her first collection, was published in 1990 and  was added to the HSC syllabus in 1998.  Westbury developed a dual career as a distinguished writer and teacher of writing. Throughout the 1990’s she taught courses in Creative Writing at UOW, James Cook University, at the University of Western Sydney, and The College of Fine Arts – University of NSW. Poems in all four of Deborah’s previous collections are represented in her new and selected The View from Here published by Brandl & Schlesinger in 2008, as well as the new work, reflecting her experiences as observer, participant and traveller through the lives of the people, cultures, times and places through which she has moved in these years, from working class origins in Wollongong amongst the migrant’s smokestacks of Port Kembla – through intimate involvement in the many lives from inner Western Sydney, to America, and back again to the Blue Mountains – Westbury’s voice has retained its poise, and its quiet understated mastery of language and emotion, while retaining a true gift for arresting imagery.  Deborah died in March 2018.