Jon Doust has lived many lives, but all his journeys led him back to Albany.

One of Albany’s most well-known literary voices, Doust is an accomplished novelist, most notably penning Boy On a Wire, the acclaimed coming-of-age story that was longlisted for the 2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

But he has also been a banker, a journalist, a comedian, an expert in Jungian psychological theories, a public speaker, and a community project facilitator.

Doust was born and grew up on a farm in Bridgetown, in the South West, but has a long family history in Albany.

“Albany has always been in me, it’s always been part of my soul,” he said.

“I’ve come here every decade of my life, even in those middle decades when I was a young, rampant, ill-behaved boy, I still came here.”

He moved permanently to the city with his wife Grytsje in 2008, and has remained a proud Albany resident ever since.

The future of Yakamia Forest is a community issue Doust has taken on as a passionate advocate, and the topical block of bushland is where he chose to be photographed for the bicentenary feature.

“I live in Spencer Park, on the cusp of Yakamia and all the birds that visit us nest in Yakamia Forest,” he said.

“I have been in there many times with Larry Blight (Menang man and cultural educator) and learnt so much, including how to ward off colds by eating wayna, peppermint tree leaves.

“Yakamia Forest is more than a block of remnant bush, it is an air-filtering powerhouse, a medicine chest, a church, museum, hospital, and home to threatened creatures.

“Why would you clear it, or build a road through it?

“Now there’s a way to remember the last 200 years: save a forest that is like it was back then.”

Doust also feels very connected to local Indigenous history and culture, and said talk of Albany’s bicentenary this year had been a time for him to reflect on the cultural history of the region as both a writer and as a resident.

“All the bicentenary talk this year has been very emotional for me for a whole range of reasons,” he said.

“My father’s father was a Noongar-speaking man.

“He was born in Bridgetown in 1890 and his playmates growing up were two Pibelmen Noongar kids, Nookum and Yabi, and so he learnt the language with them.

“Then came the 1904 Act which forbade speaking of Noongar language, and over time most of the people in that area stopped speaking the language.

“He lost that connection, that language, but he was a storyteller, and when he told his grandchildren stories, they were peppered with Noongar words.

I’ve always had Noongar friends, but this year has felt like a sudden acknowledgement and respect of the long history of the first culture, and, at times, a celebration of the two living together

“There is still some reluctance among many, and some lack of acknowledgement, still some misunderstanding of history, but for me this year has proven an opportunity to bring a lot of that history to light.”

A highlight of the Albany 2026 calendar of events for Doust was the very first one: the New Year’s Eve celebrations at the Anzac Peace Park which put Noongar performers to the fore and featured many artists Doust considers himself lucky enough to call friends.

“To be there and see people like Gina Williams-Ghouse, Clint and Kylie Bracknell, Jarrad Wall and Dal Jones perform, that just blew me away, and the MC double act of Rachael Colmer and Hardy Croucher was joyous,” Doust said.

“When you’ve spent a lot of time with people, and you know their pain, and you know their suffering, and you know what they’ve gone through, and then you see them do something amazing and wonderful. It just breaks you up emotionally. I mean, with joy.”

Doust was also a contributor to the Gift of Truth Telling journal, which was edited by Albany historian Malcolm Traill and Harry Freemantle and included essays on a range of Albany’s history to celebrate the bicentenary year.

His piece explored the impact of agriculture on the landscape, and drew from his own childhood growing up on an apple orchard near Bridgetown.

Doust said writing the essay was a perfect opportunity to dig deeper into the past and find some buried truths, something he said he believed was a crucial thing to do in a year that is celebrating Albany’s colonial history.

“To write about that and to look through the texts of early settlers in the area, people like Mary Taylor, who was the wife of Patrick Taylor, you read some truths that we don’t generally acknowledge,” he said.

“These sorts of historical accounts, I believe, are crucial for a community to come to terms with its past.

“It’s about acknowledgement and then moving on in new and different ways.”