Grant van Wingerden grew up on Pine Grove farm in Wialki. His grandfather was the third pioneer in the district.
A district athlete in the bush, his interests moved to the more cerebral in his teens. He joined the high school debating team, and a keen interest in public speaking helped his later career.
Grant van Wingerden was raised in rural and remote Western Australia which shaped his early years and his eventual fascination with the polar opposite, city life. 'Voices Verses Vices' collects the poems Grant wrote in exercise books during the eighties and nineties. These poems often channel the voices and perchance the vices of those with whom he had shared a space in boys' and men's hostels, flats, and inner city share houses. Crafted with a fond regard for the conventions of verse combined with an anarchic spirit calling down the Muse, these works invite repeated readings.
