Josef Holman studied languages - German, Polish, Russian, Spanish and English - from an early age. Before migrating to Australia he served a short time in the British Army.
In Australia he spent three years at Graphic Arts College studying publishing and bookselling, then took a two-year Diploma of Hotel Management and a two-year course in Bible Studies (Canberra). From 1957 to 1960 he worked as an aircraft assembler, waiter and chef/catering manager and in a hotel in Miami, Florida. On his return from the USA, he managed ski lodges, hostels, motels, guest houses, was a camp manager in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, owned a guest house, a domestic maintenance business and a canteen, and was manager in a Western Australian mining camp. He also qualified as a translator in Czech with the National Accredited Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI). In 1984 he was ordained a minister in the Ministry of Salvation Church.
Holman has won awards and commendations for his short stories in Czechoslovakia, West Germany (from the newspaper Dieburg Zeitung) and in Australia (from Writers World). In 1989 he was made a Writing Fellow by the New South Wales (NSW) Fellowship of Australian Writers.
