Spotlight Series July 2026: Leonie Napier - Start the Story
Writer Leonie Napier at Leeton Library, July 2026. Photo A Whitehead Western Riverina Arts
For the past six years Leonie Napier, playwright and author, has been a resident writer for original theatre works produced by the Australian Art Deco Festival in Leeton. Her plays perform to sellout seasons annually for her murder mysteries. The festival attracts thousands of visitors a year and is a hallmark of the historic art deco town every winter.
Leonie Napier has always loved to write and has always had an active imagination: “I didn't value it as a young person. I thought it is not that valuable, people who are athletes or people who academic, that is much more important.” Leonie loved to write but never took it seriously until the Covid Pandemic in 2020 when she joined the Riverina Writing Group at the time which was established by Sarah Tiffen. When the world went into isolation, it started online and then continued with regular sessions at the Historic Hydro. “Covid was good for that because it cut out everything, cut out the noise.” Leonie liked the variety of what they were trying. “I had never written poetry before, so I tried narrative poetry, and then somehow I got myself into playwriting.”
Fatefully, Leonie says her writing career came from getting herself into a ‘situation’: “I always like to think of possibilities all the time and somebody had told me that Agatha Christie had gone to the Historic Hydro and stayed there for a night.” Not taking it at face value she researched its validity: “I did find a book written by her grandson and it was postcards and letters from the British Empire tour.” Leonie proposed the idea of a play for the Australian Art Deco Festival Leeton to Suesann Vos, Cultural and Heritage Development Manager of Leeton Shire Council at the time: “The next day she said ‘well ok sure’ ” and insisted that Leonie write it. “I said I have never written a play and she said ‘you’ll be right’. ”
Bloodshed at the Banquet poster, 2022 Australian Art Deco Festival Leeton. Image C/- Leeton Shire Council
Leonie used this opportunity as a platform to create a murder mystery, which wrapped around the war and post war years based on the real issues of enslaving vulnerable young people. It was a heavy topic: “I chose melodrama, where you can go over the top with all those things and hope that your message is kind of received. But the interesting thing is, when you write, you are open to a lot of criticism. So it takes a fair bit of courage to do that and to have people pay money to see this play.” She says this opened the work to critique. In one scene which was brutal she had feedback saying to cut the scene: “I said if somebody is buying a ticket to a show that says ‘Bloodshed at the Banquet’, I think they have got a pretty good indication that this is going to be brutal!” It was at this point that Leonie learned as a writer to toughen up by reflecting on whether this sort of censorship would be demanded from an opera. “I think all artists struggle with that self-belief.”
Finding herself with a play that had to be produced, the festival turned to Leonie to direct it as well: “I had to try and work out how to direct, how to engage people who would act.” This was a new door opened that was “huge and unexpected.”
Leonie has now placed writing first in her creative career. She works with range of forms and genres including local leader newspaper column writer for The Irrigator for six years, narrative poetry, plays, a children’s book, and is currently writing a novel. Leonie seizes opportunities to use as platforms to keep writing, like the Australian Art Deco Festival Leeton, or reaching out to local libraries, schools and daycare centres to promote her book. Her aim is not to make big dollars, or have a big name, but really inspire other people to enjoy creativity: “I was very interested in mental health. Any creativity is a form of healing in lots of ways. You can connect with other people with those stories. That is why I think they are really important, where people can say, ‘I get that’.” She says as a writer you can “make them laugh, or you make them cry, or make them think.”
Writer Leonie Napier with Manager of Leeton Library Rachel Cody, July 2026. Photo A Whitehead Western Riverina Arts
Published in the first issue of Mona Magazine, Leonie identifies her story on slavery as a significant achievement because it was released to a very wide audience, and it was a message that was important for people to receive. While she loves all of her works, she also cites her illustrated children’s book The Curious Explorers as being really special during a time when people were isolated during the Pandemic. It was an attempt to encourage people to make their backyards environmentally friendly; a place where you can find amazing things: “I think if you do not find joy in all those little tiny things then you are never going to feel the pleasure of creating.”
Leonie outlines her situation as a regional artist with both benefits and barriers, being that it was not a career seriously entertained by her family or community: “Responsibilities have stopped me.” She also points out the networking opportunities that are missing in the regional areas. Examples include the fact that there are seldom opportunities for regional plays to be performed in metro areas, yet plays are performed here from city areas all the time. At the same time Leonie is adamant that being a regional artist does not diminish her as a practising artist: “I think you personally have to be a bit more; maybe more pushy.”
The power of writing in a group sense is significant for Leonie: “In one of our writing groups, we had a young fellow who had just moved to Australia and came and shared a book that he had written. And it was just an incredible story. Everyone was captivated with it because it was raw and it was real and it was his journey. And it was very bold and courageous to read it out because it was about an addiction...it gave him the ability to talk about what he was experiencing.“
Leeton Library Writers’ Group July 2026. Meets monthly at Leeton Library. Photo A Whitehead courtesy Leeton Library Writers’ Group.
Tony Reneker, who was a councillor for Leeton Shire from 2019-2024, and who served as both Deputy Mayor and Mayor, is passionate about the arts in the regional communities. As a thespian himself, he deeply appreciates the impact to the community that Leonie is celebrated for: “Leonie is a very talented and generous writer who has the ability to write in a number of different genres from children's books to plays” and adds, “she is generous and compassionate enough to ensure she brings people along with her on the journey. This was evident when she wrote and co-directed different plays which were a major part of the Australian Art Deco Festival Leeton. She had the ability to get a number of strangers, from all different backgrounds and skill sets, to work collegiately together and probably more importantly, to have fun together, which resulted in outstanding successes.” Tony also observed that “she was able to get people to work outside their comfort zones without them even realising…the Leeton Community is a lot better off by having Leonie in their midst and she is an inspiration to those who may choose to try their hand at writing.”
Leonie is looking to the future of her writing as a continuance of it being a creative force in her life that integrates healing and is shared through story. On the horizon is a book that she says she really wants to do that is a personal story: “It will be a confronting book and it will be about domestic violence from the eyes of a child and how it impacts your life.” She says there are barriers that she is trying to work out “because it is also a message, it is a story that I think should be told because people see the impact of it, but not always through the child's eyes and how it affects them their entire life. It never ever goes away…and I think people would be more mindful of children if they could understand what they say in front of a child is interpreted in a whole different way to what an adult would.”
The Curious Explorers (2024) written by Leonie Napier and illustrated by Dorothy Roddy. Photo A Whitehead Western Riverina Arts.
Leonie’s advice for people wishing to begin their writing journey is to “join a writing group now”. She stresses the importance of just starting the story: “Really say to yourself, if I have that dream, if I have that desire, if I have that story…what is stopping me from doing it? And I think if you can have a look at the barriers, what is stopping you from doing it, that, generally for everybody, would all probably be the same… being rejected.” She says that is “what I advise, that is what we are sort of doing at the writing group…simply you have got to start writing.” She pointed out that a writing group can encourage this beginning and will often run structured exercises like free flow writing: “You are not thinking about it, you are just going to write. Ten minutes, non-stop, it will not be edited, you are just going to read it out after. And I think people have been surprised what they can come out with.”
Writer Leonie Napier at Leeton Library, July 2026. Photo A Whitehead Western Riverina Arts
List of Works by Leonie Napier:
Bloodshed at the Banquet (2021) play
A Twist in the Tail (2022) play
Lies and Spies in Masterful Disguise (2024) radio play
The Department of Discombobulation (2025) short play
The Mystery of Chimura Castle (2026) play
The Curious Explorers (2024) children’s illustrated book
The Irrigator (2020-2025) local leader newspaper column
Mona Magazine (2022) first issue, major piece contributor
Article by Aanya Whitehead, Western Riverina Arts, 29.7.26
AI Declaration: No AI was used in the writing of this article. Some AI transcription tools were used to source material from the original interview with the subject.
