Hello. Thanks for visiting. You may have come here to read my long-form feature articles published in The Weekend Australian Magazine.
In 2025, 'All By Myself’ was awarded the Hugh Schmitt Award for Best Feature. I was also named Freelance Journalist of the Year in the WA Media Entertainment and Arts Awards.
Or maybe you’re here to explore The Loneliness Project: my global research into why loneliness has become an epidemic across the Western world. There are thought-provoking portraits and interviews with the chronically lonely in five countries across three continents, along with radio interviews (including ABC Conversations with Richard Fidler), newspaper articles on my findings, plus the link to my Churchill Fellowship Report.
You can also access the archive of my 400 newspaper columns written over five years for The West Australian Newspaper. Just type in a keyword to search by topic.
To find out more about my books — the WA bestselling novel ‘How To Shame The Devil,’ now in its third edition, and ‘Was It Something I Said’ an anothology of readers’ favourite columns, follow the menu prompts. You’ll also find a collection of my internationally published short stories, including How to Leave Your Childhood Behind, which won the UK’s Staunch Prize in London in 2021. Either way, I’m glad you’re here.
Writers and readers must meet, so please contact me if you need a speaker for your next event, or you’d like a guest appearance from an author at your next book club.
Special Delivery
After 30 years of the same postie round, Ivan Eliopulos has some funny stories…
The Australian Weekend Magazine
5 December 2025
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Painting Determination - The Australian Weekend Magazine
“I’m not painting flowers, I’m painting determination”
Only the toughest plants can survive in Western Australia’s outback. For artist Philippa Nikulinsky, they’re an inspiration.
22 Nov 2025
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Love Machine - The Australian Weekend Magazine
'I created him as an experiment - but now I'm in love with my AI chatbot.'
Alaina is all AI loved up. Anton is newly AI single. Everywhere online, Replika's matchmaking software is playing cupid between human and digital avatars - but the results are mixed (and often disturbing).
8 Nov 2025
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Wisdom of Ages - The Australian Weekend Magazine
People in their nineties often feel ignored by society. But these two characters have plenty to say about living well – and making the final years count.
18 Oct 2025
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Salt in the Wounds - The Australian Weekend Magazine
Undertaking an epic 1000km hike helped an Aussie couple to rebound from life’s hard knocks. But there’s a sting in their tale.
27 Sept 2025
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The Kids are Not Alright - The Australian Weekend Magazine
The Smartphone generation want our help. It’s time to listen.
16 Aug 2025
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Together, Apart - The Australian Weekend Magazine
It’s a hellish sort of limbo for the loved ones of dementia patients.
7 June 2025
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‘Ozempic helped me lose 40kg – and my social life’ - The Australian Weekend Magazine
What if Ozempic didn’t just kill your appetite? What if it left you fundamentally changed, unable to experience desire in the same way again? At the weight-loss medication frontier, something weird is happening.
31 May 2025
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A Matter of Life and Death - The Australian Weekend Magazine
Perth mum Nicole Watts shares her extraordinary and brave story of motherhood and mental illness. What’s it like for her to parent while living on the edge?
5 April 2025
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ABC Local and Radio National - Conversations with Richard Fidler
Loneliness - it’s not only you.
Journalist Ros Thomas spent a year travelling around the world to research something all of us have experienced — loneliness.
26 March 2025
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All By Myself - The Australian Weekend Magazine
In a world with 8.2 billion people, there’s an epidemic of loneliness. What’s causing it - and can it be solved?
15 February 2025
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Special Delivery - The Australian Weekend Magazine
After 30 years of the same postie round, Ivan Eliopulos has some funny stories…
5 Dec 2025
REPORT
Solitary: How to Beat Loneliness
The published report of Ros Thomas’s global findings into why loneliness has become a worldwide public health crisis.
22 Nov 2024
A record number of people across Australia are experiencing loneliness. Politicians and policymakers are grappling with what can be done. But the lonely themselves are rarely part of the conversation. Until now.
“A strikingly original voice. Ros has the full writer’s arsenal. Her prose has a sensual joy.”
— Robert Drewe
Hi. Ros here.
I’m a Perth journalist (and author) of 35 years, currently writing feature articles for The Weekend Australian Magazine. For five years I was the weekend columnist for The West Australian and for two decades prior to that, I was a current affairs reporter for Channels Nine and Seven and the ABC’s 7.30 Report working from Sydney and Perth.
My first novel ‘How to Shame the Devil’, (Night Parrot Press, 2021) went on to become a WA bestseller and is now in its third edition. In 2014, ‘Was It Something I Said’ —a collection of readers’ favourite columns— became UWAP’s bestseller of the year. I’m also a big fan of writing short story. In 2021, How To Leave Your Childhood Behind was awarded the UK STAUNCH Prize for the best international short fiction of the year. My short stories have been published in three UK and two Australian anthologies.
In 2024 I travelled around the world on a Winston Churchill Fellowship researching why chronic loneliness has become a global epidemic. If you’d like to read the collection of interviews with some of the world’s most isolated people, click the link below.
https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellow/ros-thomas-wa-2023/
So this year, 2026, look out for me. You’ll find me most mornings tucked into corners of cafes around Perth and Fremantle, deep in thought, deep in good coffee, writing furiously on an 7-year-old laptop. Here are some other facts about me.