Mena Ivy Bright Calthorpe (1905–1996) was an Australian writer, who was once short listed for the Miles Franklin Award.
Educated at St Bridgets and Our Lady of Mercy College at Goulburn, she became a schoolteacher and worked at several small country schools for nearly ten years.
She was 28 when she married Bill Calthorpe, two years her junior, who worked on his family's sheep property, Douro Station outside Yass.
The Calthorpe family were forced to sell the property in 1933 not long after Mena and Bill were married and they moved to Sydney, where they bought a shop in Paddington, which was not successful.
She joined the School of Modern Writers, a group which included Katharine Susannah Prichard, Sally Bannister and Dorothy Corke.
Despite his family's conservative political stance, her husband Bill's experiences during the Depression led to him becoming active in the Trade Union movement.