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The real-life story of a young Albany girl who buoyed the spirits of Gallipoli-bound soldiers is one of several Anzac stories that inspired the Perth Festival's The Giants . The author of the award-winning Lighthouse Girl recalls its tenuous birth, and the novels she is completing as part of her PhD studies at UWA.

Six years ago, storyteller Dianne Wolfer became intrigued by the story of an Albany girl who waved to departing troops from the windswept isolation of an offshore island. The departing troops held on to that final memory of home and the lighthouse keeper's daughter, and from the Middle East they sent postcards to Albany addressed to "the little girl on Breaksea Island".

"It wasn't a story that was well known in Albany," says Dianne. "I'd never heard of Faye Howe, the daughter of the lighthouse keeper, until I read a reference to her in an article on World War I in The West Australian ."

However, the article mentioned that the girl's son was still alive and when Dianne contacted him in the hope of hearing the story and viewing some of the old postcards, she was disappointed: memorabilia associated with the wartime years in Faye Howe's life had been lost to history.

"At that point I nearly gave up..." recalls Dianne, but by then she was hooked on the atmospherics of the story: the sombre sight of the AIF ships gathering in King George Sound; the remote island lighthouse and the lonely 15-year-old (mourning the loss of her mother) who sent semaphore signals to the departing soldiers.

"There were 30,000 men on those ships, with little opportunity to go ashore. Some sent messages to their families through Faye, others stowed notes in bottles that washed onto beaches," says Dianne. "For departing soldiers Albany was their last sight of home and the lighthouse girl their last human link as they sailed out of the harbour."

With scant facts to work with, Dianne's imagination and literary skills took over and Lighthouse Girl began to take shape. Later, Fremantle Press commissioned artist Brian Simmonds to add some memorable images to an award-winning story that turned out to be far longer than most illustrated children's books.

Dianne was delighted with the result, and the book won the 2010 WA Young Readers Awards. The author later added a partner WWI tale, Light Horse Boy, that won the CBCA Honour Book 2014. As Albany prepares to mark the anniversary of the departure of the ANZAC fleet, local bookstores are well stocked with the books by the well-known local author who has some 15 titles to her credit.

Today Dianne is working on two further children's books as part of her PhD supervised by UWA's Professor Van Ikin and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Tess Williams. Her topic is anthropomorphism in Australian Children's Literature and her research ranges from works like Animal Farm to the Magic Pudding . The fiction works are a WWII story involving a dog and a fantasy set in Papua New Guinea that explores the ancient practice of shark calling, along with the mythology and rituals relating to sharks. The two novels, Flynn of the Outback and The Shark Caller (for readers in the 11-15 age range), are nearing completion. Dianne hopes they will soon be accepted for publication.

Note: Extending the postcards theme from the story of the lighthouse girl, the Perth International Arts Festival has a Postcards from Home project in which they are calling on the public to share with them the Anzac stories of relatives and friends. To find out more visit the festival website: perthfestival.com.au