Biography Ruth Bedford

Poet Biography

Ruth Bedford was a member of the well connected Anglo-Australian Stephen family.

In 1904 Ruth met Dorothea MacKellars and began a lifelong friendship. They would spend hours in extended dramatic improvisation. They existed in a world of make-believe where their imagined persons had birthdays and existed independent of their creators, but they would occasionally assume the lives of their creations.

In 1931, Ruth Bedford and Dorothea Mackellar established the Sydney branch of the London-based international literary society, PEN-an acronym for Poets, Essayists, Novelists. To recruit members, they wrote letters of invitation to eligible writers within the Sydney literary community.