Wendy Harmer

Wendy Harmer (born Wendy Brown, 10 October 1955 in Yarram, Victoria) is an Australian author, children's writer, playwright and dramatist, radio show host, comedian and television personality. She is host of ABC Sydney's 702 Mornings radio program.

The daughter of Graham Frederick Brown and Margaret Elsie Brown (née Wicks), Harmer was born in Yarram and grew up in small country towns in Victoria, including Warncoort , Selby, California Gully, Freshwater Creek and Geelong, where she studied journalism at the Gordon Institute of TAFE and Deakin University and became a reporter at the Geelong Advertiser. Her journalistic career took her to Melbourne, where she worked for The Sun News-Pictorial newspaper on the rounds of transport, urban affairs and state politics.

As an arts feature writer, she was introduced to a comedy group performing at the Flying Trapeze comedy venue. This group included Ian McFadyen, Mary-Anne Fahey and Peter Moon.

Harmer left The Sun News-Pictorial and worked part-time at the Melbourne Times newspaper - a free suburban newspaper and began working in her days off as a stand up comedian. She is acknowledged as the first Australian woman to enter the all-male domain of stand up comedy in the 2015 ABC TV series Stop Laughing This is Serious

Not long afterwards, Harmer was headlining her own shows at the Last Laugh theatre restaurant, owned by entrepreneur John Pinder and later by Rick McKenna. The shows included masterpieces of Australian comedy, including Faking It, Sunburn Bloody Sunburn, and Sunburn the Day After, which included the group from the Flying Trapeze and, among others, Mark Neale, Richard Stubbs, and Steve Vizard.

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