Writing and Books

Journalism and online writing

During an extensive career in journalism I have:

  • written a wide range of articles for daily newspapers, and magazines from political, economic and environmental stories to adventure travel.
  • written speeches for Ministers and Ambassadors and ones I also delivered  to international audiences when an Australian  diplomat in Brussels and on a posting in Budapest as public affairs manager.
  • transformed technical information into reader savvy stories which have had greater impact.
  • Co-presented and run my own programs on radio stations
  • Written scripts and managed, written and edited online content for diverse media including government and non-government organisations
  • Managed social and traditional media content for international organisations

Books

I have had three books published:

Painters, Philosophers and Poets Sustain a Seven-year Cycle

Published May, 2022,  the book tells stories of how  I shared my  footprint with the ghosts of famous people who coincidentally lived in the same places as me,  often eras apart from one another.

Follow my journeys from the bleak reality of war crime trials at The Hague’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to the cobbled charm of Arles, the French city where the Dutch painter Van Gogh flourished. To places as diverse as Vietnam and Ecuador, North Macedonia and Louisiana, the Netherlands and Hungary. Uncovering facts hitherto unknown to me about historic figures such as Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, Albert Einstein, Ho Chi Minh, Alexander the Great, Mata Hari, the last Creole plantation owner, Laura Locoul Gore, and the Hungarian pioneer of Covid-19 vaccines, Dr Katalin Karikó. The book is a companion to:

– Where To Go For a Seven-Year Cycle (republished 2017)

A philosophical, often off the main tourist beat travel book based on my seven years’ travel experiences working mainly in central and eastern Europe. The book’s title is based on philosophical views that seven years of our lives represent a particular cycle. The seven years began when I left Sydney in 2002 to work in Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia as a volunteer for an aid agency. The journey continues in 2003 to Hungary and a three year contract at the Australian embassy in Budapest, and later as a teacher and journalist in other parts of the region, such as Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Albania.

It is not a travel book in the sense that it lists places and contact details, but an exploration of a region I previously had no particular interest in, a renewed discovery of my European heritage, a strong relationship with a city (Budapest) I had  no traditional or family connection to and a contemplation of the strong feelings I once had for Australia. The book also examines elements of exile, and anonymity in foreign countries which can create a rather contented bubble of living, sometimes immune from more deeper emotions – including in the context of my long friendship with the late Australian writer Randolph Stow, who settled in her home town in England and whose books dwelt on these themes.

– Journey Through Grief (published 1996)

The three books are available from Ginninderra Press   

Paperback and kindle versions are also available for the first two books from outlets such as Amazon.

For more details please contact me here.