Bluediamond, I also use Corel 9 and I am not very clued up on its workings, especially the layer management bit. I just did the following:
1.Import a picture (actually a .jpg) and size it.
2. Clear of the picture I drew my speech bubble - black outline, then did a white fill.
3. Wrote text inside bubble (black text).
4. Grouped the bubble and text.
5. Moved the group to where I wanted it on the photo. It now looked as you describe, speech bubble with black text on white background.
6. Hit "Print" on the Stylus PHOTO 900, et voila! Printed exactly as viewed on the screen.
Dunno what I'm doing right though, apart from doing it all on one layer.!