About Meme
Photographs
Author Resume
Artistic Director Resume
Literary Agent
Jenny Darling & Associates
PO BOX 413
Toorak
Vic 3142
Australia
Telephone:61(0)39827 3883
Fax: 61 (0) 3 9827 1270
jda@jd-associates.com.au
Permissions email:
permissions@jd-associates.com.au
Speakers Agent
Booked Out
PO Box 580
South Yarra Victoria 3141
Ph: 03 9824 0177
Fax: 03 9824 0677
bookings@bookedout.com.au
I grew up in the country in western Queensland, trained in theatre in Melbourne, then directed epic events in wonderful places throughout Australia, and in Aoteroa/New Zealand and Japan.
Writing books has been an opportunity to sit still and make sense of the world. My latest novel, LOVE LIKE WATER, is set in the desert - a hard place to find water but a great place to find yourself.Since completing LOVE LIKE WATER, I've been engaged as artistic director of a three year arts project called CONNECTING IDENTITIES based in Geelong, Victoria.
Books and Awards
PUT YOUR WHOLE SELF IN (Penguin Books 1992) - Joint Winner, New South Wales State Literary Prize for non-fiction 1993; Winner, Braille & Talking Book Award 1993.
THE WAY OF THE BIRDS (Allen & Unwin 1996) - Short-listed Wilderness Society Environment Award 1997; adapted for animation by Twenty/20 Production Company winning Best Film (Class C) Cinanima International Animated Film Festival Portugal 2000.
MAYBE TOMORROW with Boori Monty Pryor (Penguin Books 1998) - Special commendation Human Rights Awards 1998; Short-listed Information Book, Children's Book Council Book of the Year Awards 1999.
MY GIRRAGUNDJI with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin 1998) -Winner, Book of the Year for Younger Readers, Children's Book Council Book of the Year Awards 1999; Short-listed, Best Children's Book, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards 1999; Commended, Best Designed Young Adult Book, Australian Publishers Association 1998.
THE BINNA BINNA MAN with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin 1999) - Winner, Book of the Year, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000; Winner, Ethol Turner Prize for young people's literature, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000; Winner, Ethnic Affairs Commission Award, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000; Winner, Book of the Year and author/narrator book, TDK Audio Book Awards 2000
NJUNJUL THE SUN with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin 2002) Winner, The Kraft Foods Prize for Young Adult Fiction; Victorian Premiers Literary Awards 2002; Shortlisted for the Childrens Book Council of Australia awards 2003.
FLYTRAP with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin 2002).
SISTER CHICK (Allen and Unwin 2002) shortlisted Wilderness Society Environment award 2003.
LOVE LIKE WATER (Allen and Unwin 2007) shortilisted Australian National Literary Awards; Highly commended Christina Stead award for fiction; shortlisted 2008 CBCA award.
From the Beginning
I spent a lot of time in the bush when I was a kid. I grew up in south-west Queensland on a sheep and cattle property and first went to school in our kitchen where my mother taught me by correspondence school. My lessons arrived once a week down a dusty track, tossed off the back of a mail truck, in a faded canvas bag. If it rained, which was rare, the mail truck couldn't get down the boggy road, so school was called off, sometimes for weeks.
Then I was off to boarding school in Brisbane. Fresh out of the dormitory, I spent a year on an American Field Scholarship, living in one of New York's bedroom suburbs.
When I came back to Australia, I studied Economics at university for six months and then explored English and Drama and Psychology and Politics... University of Queensland seemed an inspiring place for exploring what life was about in the seventies. And for finding out about relationships. So, I fell in love, ran away to Melbourne, and after a year at Monash University, I found myself studying a three year diploma course at the Victorian College of the Arts for a professional career in the theatre. With three other graduates, I founded one of Australia's first professional community theatres - WEST Theatre Company - in 1979. Creating and directing theatre became my passion for the next sixteen years.
Eight years into my theatre career I was searching for inspiration, a new way of seeing. I took up a part-time photography course. That's where I discovered writing.
I'd left it to the last moment to finish a roll of film for my photographic class on Monday night. Early that morning I went to the Melbourne City Baths to do my usual lap swimming. I tucked my camera under my arm just in case I found something there to shoot at the same time. A pool full of older women doing exercises in the water caught my attention. Nervously, I asked if I could take some photos of them. Five years later, I emerged with my first book, Put Your Whole Self In. I am forever grateful to these elders for challenging me to write, for sharing their stories and for teaching me to value my own.
I've now written nine books, five of them with Aboriginal storyteller Boori Monty Pryor. There were many Aboriginal people living where I grew up. I knew very little of their culture or stories till much later in life.
Working with Joy Murphy Wandin and Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians of the land where I now live in Melbourne, and writing books with Boori and his family, helped to educate me in the ways of my homeland, giving me a richer understanding of belonging in this country.
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