ABOUT ME

I was born near Manchester, UK in 1955. After graduating with a PhD in English from Reading University, I took up a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities at the Flinders University of South Australia. Following a brief return to England, where I worked at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, I returned to live in Australia in October, 1984. Subsequently, I worked at University of New England (1985-7) and UNSW@ADFA (1988-2004), attaining the position of Associate Professor in 1999.

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Since leaving UNSW@ADFA, I have concentrated on my writing. I was fortunate enough to hold a two-year senior writer’s new work grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council (2004-6) and I have worked part-time teaching creative writing at ANU. In 2005, I was the Canberra Universities Creative Writing Fellow and spent time working with students at UNSW@ADFA, University of Canberra, and ANU.

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As well as a range of essays and articles published in books and journals both in Australia and overseas, I have published three books of literary/cultural criticism, four books of poetry and a non-fiction novel The White: Last days in the Antarctic journeys of Scott and Mawson 1911-1913. (Picador, 1999; Pan-Macmillan, UK, 2001) The White won the Nettie Palmer prize for non-fiction in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2000 and the A.C.T. Book of the Year, 2000. Recognition of The White also led to my appearance as an ‘expert’ in a documentary film Surviving Extremes, made for the ABC by David Parer and Elizabeth Parer Cook, first broadcast in 2006.

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The White is now available as a Momentum ebook here.

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As well as my writing, I am a keen (but amateur) guitarist, and an avid fan of Everton Football Club in English football, and the Adelaide Crows in the AFL.