By Alesha Capone
Werribee writer and poet Barbara Goulter is entering a new chapter of her life, leaving the area she has called home for almost two decades to move back to the United States.
Goulter, 85, moved to Werribee in 1999, with her now late husband Vic, an Australian she met in San Francisco.
She said she had recently made the “long and hard decision” to move back to the US to be closer to her three sons, grandchildren and her first great-grandchild.
During her time in Werribee, Goulter has been an active member of the Western Union Writers group.
She has published several books and is perhaps best known for 1993’s The Father-Daughter Dance, which she wrote with psychotherapist Joan Minniger.
While she lived in San Francisco, Goulter reviewed films for the San Francisco Chronicle, was an associate editor of Film Buff magazine and organised film festivals, with a focus on Japanese films.
She said that she would take all her “unfinished manuscripts” back to the US in the hope of finishing some of them.
She said there were many things she would miss about Werribee after she flies this week to the US, where she plans to live in Los Angeles.
“I had a very happy time in Werribee and I can’t think of anywhere I would have rather been,” she said.
“I really like Werribee and I like the fact that you can drive for five minutes and be in the country or drive to the water, and I love the zoo.
“I’ll miss so much – the people I know, the writer’s group.
“I like the climate, I just like the look and feel of the place – it has become home.”
