I grew up surrounded by – indeed, immersed in – books and music. The latter became my career while the former remained an essential part of my life. Writing developed as an ancillary to my performing and music teaching: I contributed regularly to The Recorder, the de facto national journal for Early Music, from its first issue in 1984, going on to edit it and to write for many other journals including Sounds Australian and Music Forum (for more on my musical work, visit my older site).
I realised that I enjoyed writing for its own sake and gradually took it in other directions. My interests have always been broad. I have read widely in science (especially its history), religion and philosophy; fantasy and SF; and literary fiction. I find most naturalistic fiction dull but believe that a good children’s book is a good book and enjoy historical fiction, police procedurals and thrillers. All of this made it natural for me to take up reviewing for my local newspaper, the Townsville Bulletin (2004 onwards). I have also contributed to LiNQ, Viewpoint, The Australian Rationalist, The Helix and other publications.
My enthusiasm for photography synergised with my long-standing interest in the environment to lead to an article for Wildlife Australia Magazine late in 2009 and regular shorter items for Kapok, my local Landcare newsletter. Meanwhile, I have somehow become the editor of a monthly newsletter for the Reef HQ Volunteers Association.
As I grew more involved in writing outside the musical field, I participated in various writers’ workshops, including ‘Writing for the Web’ presented by Dey Alexander at James Cook University in June 2007 and ‘Feature Writing’ presented by QWC in April 2008. Also, I learned enough about HTML to create my first personal web site in 2004 and since then have created and managed several small sites for others.
At this point I welcome opportunities in all three areas – writing, photography and web design. If you need someone with my skills, please contact me.