After an early marriage and divorce Truebridge worked his way around Australia and New Zealand for the next decade as fruit-picker, gold fossicker, music teacher, and masseur.
During this time he began publishing some poetry in the pages of The Bulletin magazine.
[1] By 1934 Truebridge had settled in Brisbane and started writing prolifically, publishing his first collection that same year.
In 1939 he won the C. J. Dennis memorial prize for "The Miracle", a long philosophical poem.
[1] He married for a second time in 1939, moved to Sydney and eventually settled in Perth, Western Australia.