Dr Wendy Wright
Snapshot:
Industry / Sector: Works in Creative Industries, Works in Academia & Research
Career Type: Academic / Researcher, Creative Professional
Education Pathway: University
Mid Coast Connection: Lives on the Mid Coast
The Blurb:
Dr Wendy Wright is a poet, translator, and academic whose life journey—from Tokyo to Oxford—has been shaped by a fierce passion for storytelling and the arts. Her work spans Japanese literary translation, creative writing, and intercultural education.
Wendy’s story is one of resilience, passion, and the enduring pursuit of creative expression—values she now shares through teaching and writing. She exemplifies the power of following your passion, even when life veers off-script.
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Current Role: Translator of Japanese literature, creative writing lecturer, and published poet
Key Skills: Passion-driven learning, literary translation, creative writing, interdisciplinary arts
Professional Insights:
Passion is more powerful than conventional skill—it drives excellence
Life’s twists and turns, including setbacks, can lead to unexpected opportunities
Failing in one domain may redirect you to your true calling
Advice to Younger Self: “Don’t let setbacks define you—use challenges to propel yourself forward. Be aware of the dangers that can derail your dreams, and stay focused.”
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On Following Passion and Finding Your Path:
“If we’re passionate about something, we’re going to excel at it anyway.”
“You will find your path if you just keep doing what you love doing.”
“Don’t worry about choosing the wrong major... you can put things together in blocks—one discipline feeds into the other.”
On Creativity and Resilience:
“Because I couldn’t become a ballerina in Tokyo at age 17, I became a writer through the process of writing poetry back to my Nana in letters from Tokyo.”
“All art is narrative—whether it’s text or dance or whichever genre it is.”
“If we fail in one area of our lives, it doesn’t mean we give up. We just put it together in blocks and try again.”
On Overcoming Challenges and Self-Belief:
“The real joy of life is doing what we want to do for our work.”
“Say to yourself, ‘I’ll show them. I’ll show myself. I’m going to do this again.’”
“Not even distance can take your dreams away from you.”
On Learning from Regret and Making It Right:
“I made the unbelievable mistake of not taking up that scholarship at Oxford... so I went back and asked to teach a lecture. And I did.”
“Until we take that road we think is closed to us, we never know how exciting it can become.”
On Advice to Her Younger Self:
“Although it’s important to be wild and to move forward, it’s also important to understand the risks to our bodies and minds—which are both fragile and very, very strong.”
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[0:10] Intro
Hi, thank you for joining us for the Human Library video series. Today we are joined by Dr Wendy Wright—artist, translator and writer. Today we will hear more about Wendy's journey and how she has used her passion to get to where she is today.
[0:26] Wendy, what does your professional life look like currently?
Yes. Okay. To start as a writer, from somewhat the middle of the story of my life, and then fast forward—or to track back—by many years until I get to the age of 17, when I was finishing matriculation here in Australia. And then went to Japan for the Christmas holidays—and didn’t come back, basically. Because although I was only planning to go for three weeks, from the summertime here into the snow of Japan to visit my father, my life took a sharp and unexpected turn due to family reasons.
And I got into a university in Tokyo, the international section—decided just to stay there for one year, ended up doing my degree there, and then carrying on until I came back to Australia to do the PhD here.
So when you ask me what I’m doing now as a profession, I followed the trail of my life by now teaching Japanese studies, translation of Japanese literature. In April I go back to Japan’s premier university for literature and for famous writers—Waseda University. And I translate from Japanese into English poetry. I talk about what translates and what doesn’t, the theory of translation. I write poetry, I teach creative writing, and basically I’m a writer.
Yeah. I can’t believe it myself.
[2:25] Can you name or describe a skill that has helped you get to this point?
Yes. Well, as we were briefly discussing over coffee five minutes ago, I don’t think in terms of skill—I think in terms of passion. Because if we’re passionate about something, we’re going to excel at it anyway. The less fear we have that we’re not performing in the conventional way, the more passionate and skillful we will seem to others.
Instead of trying to fit into convention, it’s those who break the boundaries by doing what they feel is right—what they’re passionate about—that are the ones who set the bar for excellence in this life. So I would say that it’s a love of the arts and a love of reading, a love of writing. Which, as a little girl, I was told, “Oh, you’re good at writing.” I really loved hearing that I had that skill, because I loved stories. And that is what has driven me on to be who and what I am today.
And I think it’s something that lives in everyone. So yes, just follow your passion. If you don’t know what your chosen skill is, you will find it if you just keep doing what you feel you’re good at and tell your own story. Bring what you feel you’re good at into whatever profession you are involved in at that moment of your life—whether it be a doctor, a kindergarten teacher, a cook. You will find your path if you just keep doing what you love doing.
So don’t worry about choosing the wrong major. There’s such an interdisciplinary network of the education system and life these days that you can put things together in blocks. One discipline feeds into the other. One skill complements the other.
[4:44] Looking back, have you got a specific time when you have put your passion into practice and that has gotten you to where you are today? Can you talk a little bit about your passion?
I believe that—when I was a little girl—it was when I was looking at the technical photo books and films that my Nana gave me. I believe it was the dream to be a ballerina that actually turned me into a writer. It was not easy to study ballet or dance in Tokyo at age 17, but somehow or another, I found myself in the theatre over and over again—working as an interpreter for the Adelaide Festival of Arts, or whatever it was—and then slipping from being an interpreter into the dance partner of the actual director of that workshop.
So, life is very serendipitous. We find that we slip back into what we excel at, no matter what. And that drives us on to excel—and then that becomes our chosen profession. It's the power of the audience who is listening to your story, the power of the joy of being heard, that drives us on.
Because I believed that I couldn’t become a ballerina in Tokyo at age 17—this is in the days before contemporary dance was so wildly free, where it’s just a pleasure to dance in whatever way, to break all conventions—because I couldn’t do classical dance in Japan, I became a writer through the process of writing poetry back to my Nana in letters from Tokyo.
That’s what brought it home to me, in my real life, the interdisciplinary nature of the arts. Literature, opera, dance, film—are they really so different from one another? It’s all a multi-stranded spectrum of what we call skills, which is really just the telling of our stories in this life. All art is narrative—whether it’s text or dance, or whichever genre it is.
That’s an amazing thing to know and realize, because if we fail in one area of our lives—if we say to ourselves, “I’m just a failed ballerina; I knew I couldn’t make it,” or if we give up one subject or another because we’ve received an F on our transcript—these days, and in fact even in the olden days, we never had to give up at all.
Just realize: “I’ll do it again. I’ll put it together in blocks, no matter what.” I believe that the greatest artists in this world have always faced bad reviews, faced a parent or a sibling who’s maybe envious at heart, saying, “I knew you’d fail. I knew you’d never make it.” It’s the artists who continue—like a surfer who wipes out or someone riding a horse who falls off and then gets back on again—those are the people who find the real joy of life.
And the real joy of life is doing what we want to do for our work. So if you ever fail a subject, just say to yourself, “I’ll show them. I’ll show myself. I’m going to do this again.” And if I don’t pass at this university or at this college, I’ll just do it at another one. Because these days, time and distance don’t matter.
If you live in the middle of this vast, fast country, it doesn’t matter. If you’re studying remotely from overseas, not even distance can take your dreams away from you. That’s the beauty of living as we do in this time on Earth, and in this country—which, like the pioneers of old, values education and pushing through your challenges.
Overseas, Australians—the artists in Hollywood—are known as the wildest and the greatest. So let’s listen to those who have followed their dreams, and know that we can make it too. I’m watching you. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to come up with.
[10:36] What do you love about either your professional life or personal life at the moment?
I think it’s just absolutely incredible that these days, universities have so many links to other universities overseas. It’s actually easy to go to Oxford if you want—you can just fly there. It seems absolutely out of this world, something only privileged or brilliant people can do. But you know, you could go to Hollywood and start studying filmmaking as long as you're really determined.
The network of universities around the country—this is what I like about my life now and living in this age—is so connected and so powerful in that way.
When I was young, I made the colossal mistake of not doing something important. One day, after an argument with my boyfriend in Paris, I caught a train and a ferry to Oxford University. There, I was offered a scholarship to study Japanese studies. But I was very upset about the idea of losing my boyfriend, so I made the unbelievable mistake of not taking up that scholarship at Oxford.
Years later—and the years just go by so quickly, as any of our grandparents say—I told myself, “I’m not just going to accept that I failed at going to Oxford.” So I decided to go to Oxford myself and ask if I could teach a lecture on Japanese poetry. And I actually did that. They accepted me. I taught the lecture on Japanese poetry.
During COVID, I published my poetry at Oxford remotely, and then I taught a lecture on Japanese architecture, again by remote. After the first person said yes to the poetry lecture, I reached out to the Japanese architectural faculty and asked if I could teach about the incredible history of a temple in Kyoto—and they also said yes.
Until we take that road that we think is closed to us, we never know how incredibly exciting it can become. That’s what I love about my life now.
[13:26] What does that say about the values that are important to you?
I think the values that are important to me are, like a writer or a dancer, that if we don’t give up, we can achieve incredible things. If we do give up, then that performance will never be realized. That book will never be written.
When I look back on my younger self, the moments in which I felt the joy of life were truly when I didn’t give up—no matter what people around me were saying, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Sometimes, if you just use that tension, use those difficulties, and say, “Am I going to let this get me down?”—you can take that energy and go forward. And sometimes, you can do better than anyone, even yourself, could ever have imagined.
[14:34] Is there a piece of advice you wish you had told your younger self? What do you think your younger self would have said?
It’s the same advice the Catholic sisters gave me when I was 17. I said, “Oh no, it’s okay, I can handle it.” And that advice is this:
Even the greatest actors in Hollywood—even the people whose bodies seem like magic, the strongest dancers, the best surfers in the world—they all can become involved in things like drinking. Alcohol, the joy of champagne, the glamour of it, the camaraderie of drinking with your friends—it can be very destructive. It can be the absolute opposite of creativity.
Try to overcome the excitement of doing something new by saying to yourself, “I’ve heard this is dangerous. This could kill the strongest person on Earth. This could take away all my dreams, all my creativity.”
Although it’s important to be wild and to move forward, it’s also important to understand the physical and psychological risks to our bodies and our minds—which are both fragile and very, very strong.
Please note: All content is correct at the time of recording.
