AustLit

My mob is Bundjalung/Yugambeh. I grew up in Brisbane and am living there at the moment.

My favourite books growing up included the Silver Brumby series and Enid Blyton, god help me.

The book that has influenced me most is The Bone People by Maori author Keri Hulme. Reading this showed me that Indigenous voices could be taken seriously by the literary community. Also Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie and Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, among others.

The last book I read was Mr Wigg by Brisbane writer Inga Simpson. It was a terrific first novel.

I didn’t finish War and Peace, quite predictably!

I think every Australian should read True Country by Kim Scott, Earth by Bruce Pascoe, and Purple Threads, by Jeanine Leane.

learnt to write almost by accident when I went to Griffith University and studied public policy. My lecturers there insisted on good, clear writing and it was there that I learned 'the key to writing is rewriting' - the best advice I ever got. I learned not to expect a great first, or second, or even third draft.

Excellence takes time and it takes effort.

What makes a good writer is what makes a good citizen - a Hand, a Heart and a Brain, as Bruce Springsteen says in one of his songs. Plus a little dash of crazy, of course! And some political awareness is essential.

At the moment I am about to embark on a theatre project with Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) in Lismore,and I’m at the early stages of researching a novel of colonial Brisbane.