I am a poet, performer, writer and teacher. I came from the UK to live in Australia in 1991. Since 1999 I've lived on 115 acres of bush beside Monga Forest, near Braidwood. With 27,000 hectares of National Park and wilderness behind me it's no surprise the natural world features strongly in my work.

My first collection of poetry Thirst was published in the UK in 1993 and I'm currently completing a second.
In that time I've experimented with different writing forms. I love reading poetry - as in out loud, to the public - and have read my own and the work of others in many places.

 

Sometime in the late nineties I started to write seriously for performance: comic monologues and satire. Since then I've written and performed five one-man comedy shows: Garlic, Extra Virgin, Zing, Mid-life Christmas and Away With The Birds, the last of these a fusion between poetry and monologue.

I've also written two series of quirky country life tales for radio. I was commissioned by the Regional Production Fund to write and perform Stories From The Edge of The Forest and Tales Of A Tree Changer in 2004 and 2006. Both have been broadcast on ABC 666 Canberra and nationally on Radio National's Bush Telegraph. I've been commissioned to write a pilot spoof interview by ABC Radio as part of a projected new series, "The Geemonga Interviews".

I've given many workshops in schools and colleges, in Canberra, Sydney and other places. I was a Poet on Wheels in 2006. I am now focussing on PoetryAlive workshops as a way of switching people onto poetry or rekindling an older acquaintance.

My vision is to run PoetryAlive courses here at Geebung (and elsewhere) and also to facilitate creative workshop weekends which could assume many different forms: writing/ theatre/ art/ retreat. Who knows what. In these rollercoaster times when people are snowed under by work and worry and besieged by busyness, I feel strongly about bringing people to a beautiful, peaceful place for a special and creative experience.