Valerie Lawson

Journalism, biography, research

Valerie is one of Australia’s leading journalists, and the author of the critically acclaimed The Allens Affair, a true story about what happens when a senior executive’s mind starts to unravel and things begin to go horribly wrong in the interconnected worlds of law and high finance.

Her biography of P.L.Travers, the highly eccentric and talented Australian author who wrote, among many other things, the much-loved Mary Poppins books is titled Out of the Sky She Came. It was released in 1999 by Hodder Headline to positive reviews and was short-listed for the Kibble Awards. It was published in 2006 by Aurum in the UK and Simon and Schuster in the USA.

A stage production of the life of the remarkable Mary Poppins premiered in London in 2004.

Antony Loewenstein

Non-fiction

A former journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald’s F2 and The Age newspapers, Antony’s first book titled My Israel Question was released by MUP in August 2006. He has recently been nominated for the Australian Arabic Council Annual Media Award for his work on Hanan Ashrawi and contributed a chapter to Margo Kingston’s successful book Not Happy, John. His next book about the media in Australia has been contracted to Random House.

‘Provoking howls of rage even before it was published, this is a passionate account of how one determined lobby shapes politics and stifles debate in this country. It’s come just in time.’
-- David Marr

Kate Lilley

Poetry, criticism, Renaissance studies

Kate’s new book of poems Versary is published by Salt Publications in Cambridge, England:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/

You can read three poems from Kate’s new book on this site.

Amanda Lohrey

Novels, short fiction, essays

In 1995 Amanda’s novel Camille’s Bread was published to high critical acclaim by HarperCollins. It won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Fiction and the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society, and has remained in print since publication.

    ‘A novel about love and noodles, dreams and responsibilities. A contemplative, wry and tender book.’ — Philippa Hawker, Marie Claire

    Her new novel The Philosopher’s Doll (2004) focuses on a modern dilemma: a married couple have to choose whether they should have children, and if so when? Lindsay and Kirsten are in their late thirties and weighed down by an expensive mortgage. Kirsten’s biological clock is ticking away, but Lindsay wants to delay having children until they have renovated their run down inner-city cottage. Kirsten meanwhile has fallen pregnant.
    In a short but complex and layered novel about the timeless conundrum of free will, Amanda Lohrey explores the postmodern condition of hi-tech affluence where there is such a thing as too much choice. Or is it only the illusion of choice?

Rights sold: Australia/NZ (Penguin)
Photo of Amanda Lohrey by Richard Whitfield/ Penguin Group

Barry Maitland

Crime fiction

Barry Maitland was born in Scotland and after studying architecture at Cambridge University practised and taught in Britain before moving to Australia to take up the position of Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle. His crime novels feature Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla as two London-based police investigators.

His first Brock and Kolla novel was The Marx Sisters (1994) which was followed by The Malcontenta; All My Enemies; The Chalon Heads; Silvermeadow; Babel; The Verge Practice; and No Trace.

Barry Maitland is published in Australia by Allen & Unwin; in the U.K. by Orion and Arciadia Books, and in the U.S. by St Martin’s Press.

Mark McKenna

Currently a Research Fellow at ANU, Mark McKenna is an outstanding historian, and author of The Captive Republic (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Looking For Blackfellas’ Point: An Australian History of Place (University of NSW Press, 2002) which won the Australian Cultural Studies Prize 2002; the NSW Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction 2003; and the NSW Premier’s Award (Book of the Year), 2003. He is currently working on the biography of Manning Clark which has been contracted to MUP.

Duncan McNab

A former detective in the NSW police force in 1986, Duncan moved into sleuthing for criminal defence cases and the corporate world. He eventually ended up in the media as a producer/journalist for programs such as 4 Corners and Sunday and in the print media as well. The Usual Suspect, a biography of notorious crime figure Abe Saffron, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2005. His new book The Dodger based on the life of ex-policeman Roger Rogerson was released by Pan Macmillan in late 2006.

Andrew Main

Andrew’s first book Other People’s Money published in 2003 by Harper Collins is a thorough and entertaining account of the Royal Commission into the collapse of insurance giant HIH. A finance journalist for more than twenty years, Andrew reported on the Commission each day from its inception and cleverly captures the arrogance, ignorance and self-delusion of the major players. His last title was a biography of the highly controversial financier, Rene Rivkin (HarperCollins 2005)

Kathy Marks

Non-fiction

Kathy Marks is a highly respected journalist who works for the Independent covering major stories for Australia and the Pacific region. Her non-fiction book Pitcairn: Paradise Lost is a riveting account of the child sex abuse trials on Pitcairn Island. In late 2004 Marks was one of only four reporters who remained on the island for the duration of the six-week case. For the first time her book tells the extraordinary untold story of the case, laying bare the inner workings of this closed, secretive community and the events that have exposed it to the world. It has been contracted to HarperCollins for ANZ rights and by Vision in the UK.

David Marr

Journalism, biography, essays, television production

David’s first book was Barwick (Allen & Unwin), a biography of the former Chief Justice of Australia, which won the 1981 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. This was followed by The Ivanov Trail, the story of the spy scare in Canberra. Then in 1991 the brilliant and universally critically acclaimed biography Patrick White — A Life was released by Random House in Australia, Jonathan Cape in Britain, and Random House in the USA. This biography of the Novel Prize winning novelist won seven major Australian awards.
    In 1994 Patrick White — Letters was published in Australia followed by publications in the UK and USA.

    David worked for many years with ABC television program Four Corners, where his reports included the prize-winning Black Death, a documentary on Aboriginal men in custody, and Bad Blood, on the collapse of the Fairfax Newspaper dynasty in 1990. He is currently the leading feature writer for the Sydney Morning Herald.
    A collection of essays titled The High Price of Heaven was released by Allen & Unwin in 1999.

Patrick White — A Life; cover photo by William Yang

David Marr and Marian Wilkinson

Dark Victory: The Story of The Tampa

In August 2001 a Norwegian cargo ship came across a sinking ferry off the coast of Australia. Those on board were mainly Afghans. The Captain of The Tampa picked up the people and tried to land in Australia but was refused permission, setting off an international incident. Dark Victory is the inside story of the Tampa crisis and the political strategy that powered it; of how the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, seized on the issue of ‘border protection’ to start a scare campaign and bring his party back from the politically dead.
    Award-winning writer David Marr and Marian Wilkinson are accomplished investigative journalists, who burrow deep into the world of spin-doctors, bureaucrats and the military to unravel this extraordinary saga.
    An updated version of this highly successful book has recently been released by Allen & Unwin.

Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand (Allen & Unwin, October 2002)

Tina Matthews

Children’s author and illustrator Tina Matthews was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and over the years has worked as a puppet maker, a bass player, a teacher and an artist and designer.

About Out of The Egg... You think you know the tale of the little red hen. You think you know how it ends. But in this story everything changes when a hardworking red hen lays a perfect white egg. And out of this egg comes a chick with a mind of her own.

Robert Milliken

Journalism, biography

International acclaimed journalist who in 1986 published No Conceivable Injury (Penguin) regarded as the definitive account of the British atomic weapon tests at Maralinga, in the Australian desert.
    Robert’s latest work is a biography of Lillian Roxon, the fast-living Australian journalist who compiled the world’s first Rock Encyclopedia and who died tragically in New York in 1973 aged 41. It was published by Black Inc. in Australia in 2002. US publisher Thunder’s Mouth Press (http://www.thundersmouth.com/) will release their edition in 2005

Lorenzo Montesini

Fiction, autobiography

An Alexandrian by birth, Lorenzo heads the Australian Friends of the Alexandrian Library in Egypt. His stylish autobiography My Life and Other Misdemeanours was released by Penguin in 1999. With enormous gusto Lorenzo Montesini, Prince Giustiniani, recalls his early years in Egypt, his arrival in Australia, his military service in Vietnam, and his tumultuous relationship with his partner Robert Straub, and the events surrounding a certain wedding in Venice.

Stephen Sewell has taken an option on the stage rights, and Working Title in the UK have optioned the film rights in this intriguing memoir.

Mary Moody

Memoirs, gardening author, television presenter

A prolific and popular gardening author as well as a television presenter.  Mary left her television career, husband, children, grandchildren and garden for a glorious six month break away from it all in France. She turned the experience into a personal memoir titled Au Revoir which was released in 2001 by Pan Macmillan. It featured as one of the five titles in the Books Alive Program for 2004.
    Mary’s love affair with France was so strong that she decided towards the end of her stay to buy a dilapitated house in the small village of Frayssinet-le-Gélat in The Lot region.
    When she returned to Australia she realised that the six months in France had given her the opportunity to stop and reflect on her childhood as well as her adult life, marriage, career, relationships with her mother, her children and grandchildren. She had now reached a watershed. She could either pick up from where she’d left off before she’d set off to France, or make some radical decisions about her future.
    Mary and her husband David had lived in a beautiful old house in the Blue Mountains for over twenty years. After some serious thinking, she realised that farming was one thing she had always wanted to do. She and David went exploring and discovered Yetholme, a beautiful old Federation house set on 28 acres near Orange, and saw the potential to set up a French-style farm complete with potager garden and goose and duck breeding. So that took care of Australia.
    But there was still France, with memories of wonderful times she’d had and a house waiting to be renovated. And a sister that she has not seen for over thirty  years who has come back into her life as a result of the publication of Au Revoir.
     What resulted was the best-selling Last Tango in Toulouse, a moving, tender and at times hilarious account of farming and houses, marriage, lovers, and glorious, glorious food.
    Both these titles were on the best-seller list for many months. She then wrote the final part of her memoir, Long Hot Summer, which was releasded in 2005. This was followed by a beautifully photo-illustrated book titled Lunch at Madame Murat’s, a celebration of the local restaurant managed by Madame Murat, which has celebrated one hundred years of continuous operation in the French village in which Mary has her house. Both of these new titles are published by Pan Macmillan.

Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Christopher Morgan

Fiction, children’s fiction

Christopher Morgan has been a singer in a French restaurant, an artificial tree builder, a kitchen hand, a fire brigade roster clerk and a printing factory storeroom worker. In 1996 Christopher was diagnosed with a brain tumour and found that the only thing that was improved by the tumour was his imagination and decided to put it to good use. His first novel, The Island of Four Rivers, was published in June 2006 by Scribe. His children’s story Pirates Eat Porridge was published by Allen & Unwin in 2006 with a follow-up story Pirates Drive Buses due for publication in 2007.

Tom Morton

Novels, non-fiction, journalism

His non-fiction book about men in Australia, Altered Mates: the Man Question, was published by Allen & Unwin in 1997. Tom Morton writes regular feature articles on contemporary social issues for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a broadcaster with Radio National’s Background Briefing.
    Tom is presently working on a novel set in the late 18th century and based on the life of Georg Forster, a German writer, traveller and revolutionary who accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage around the world and died in Paris in 1794, at the height of the French revolution.

Kerrie O’Connor

Kerrie is a journalist turned fantasy writer. Her writing is exciting, energetic, and compelling. Her first children’s book Through the Tiger’s Eye (Allen & Unwin) is a spellbinding story suffused with humour. Rights have been sold to Mondodori in Italy.
    Book 2 in this trilogy, By The Monkey’s Tail, has just been released with Book 3 to follow. Kerrie’s illustrated children’s book, Little Jingle Says No!, was also published by Allen and Unwin in 2006.

Helen O’Neill

Non-fiction

Award-winning newspaper and TV journalist. Helen’s work appears in Australia, the US and the UK. Her first book, Life Without Limits, published by Random House in 2003, is a testament to the spirit of David Pescud, a dyslexic who pioneered Sailors with Disabilities. Just released by Hardie Grant is an exquisite book, Florence Broadhurst – Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives, based on the life and art of the brilliant wallpaper and fabric designer Florence Broadhurst. Chronicle will release a US edition in 2007.

Melanie Oppenheimer

Non-fiction, Australian history

Dr Melanie Oppenheimer has written extensively on twentieth century Australian history, especially women, volunteering and war. Among her books is All Work No Pay, Australian Civilian Volunteers in War (2002), which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards. Melanie is a Senior Lecturer in Australian History at the University of Western Sydney, and her latest book Oceans of Love: Narrelle – An Australian Nurse in World War 1 was released by ABC Books in 2006.

Catherine Padmore

Fiction, essays

Sibyl’s Cave, Allen and Unwin, ISBN 1865089524, January 2004

Steeped in the landscape and colours of its locations, Sibyl’s Cave follows the orphaned Billie through her childhood in Italy to the United Kingdom during World War II with her adopted family, to art school and then, finally, to her new life as an adult in Australia.
    Billie’s niece Lorelei and her daughter Elissa arrive unannounced from England, interrupting the reclusive island life that Billie shares with Troy her housekeeper and Stan her housemate on the Hawkesbury River. As their lives intertwine stories emerge and secrets are revealed.
    With an evocative eye for personality and place, Sibyl’s Cave alternates between Billie’s past, unearthed in her diaries and memories, and her present-day life on the island. It is a rich story about family and the importance of identity.
    Born in England, Catherine Padmore migrated to Australia with her family when she was eleven. She completed her BA (Honours) at La Trobe University and in 2002 was awarded her PhD in Professional Writing from Deakin University. Shortlisted for The Australian /Vogel Literary Award in 2001, Sibyl’s Cave is her first novel, and has also been short-listed in the ‘best first book’ category of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize .

Photo: Matthew van Hasselt 2002

Patsy Page

Novels, memoirs

A Little House In Normandy

Patsy Page’s father was a restless man. The family lived a nomadic life moving from city flats to island dwellings, from hotels to guest houses, and even a jerry-built shack. As a result, Patsy always hankered for a house she could call home.
    When she visited Paris as a young woman she fell in love with the city, and she has lived there for the last forty years. She married Alan, an English sports journalist who was happy to live in an apartment in Paris for the rest of his life.
    After inheriting a small amount of money in 1993 Patsy decided that she wanted her own little house.

   After much searching she came across a 16th century ‘ruine’ in Normandy. Its proportions were perfect. Its roof was twice as high as its walls, giving it a fairy-tale look — like a toadstool or an elf with a tall hat pulled over its ears. It was wonderful, but it was also a wreck, with holes in the roof, a mud floor encrusted with yellowish tiles, no bathroom, but a magnificent chimney. Birds lived in its roof, a large part of which was missing, and spider webs as thick as handkerchiefs draped the walls. It seemed to cry out ‘Rescue me!’ And so she did.
    This enchanting book is about Patsy’s amazing feat of restoring a beautiful ruin. It’s also about the trials and triumphs of dealing with French banks, irascible tradesmen and the dozens of exasperatingly individual people who came into her life to help restore her Little House in Normandy.

Patsy Page’s first novel Clean Start is set in bohemian Paris in the 1950s. It is the story of Jane, a young Australian woman and her husband Tom, an English poet. Into their lives comes Sally, a fellow-Australian with a surprising secret. Sally moves in with them and totally alters their lives. A graceful, highly readable story that will appeal to readers of all ages and sexual persuasions. It was released by Allen & Unwin in 1999.

Shirley Painter

Memoir

When Shirley Painter’s first book was published, she was 83 years old. She was lucky to get that far: when she was four years old, she was so badly injured she was pronounced dead and taken to the morgue. The man who had beaten her almost to death was her father.
    The Bean Patch is the story of how a young girl survived growing up in a volatile household in the 1920s and 1930s; how school, and later university, became her escape route from a family filled with secrets and violence.
    It is also the story of how, as a mature woman and a mother herself, she came face to face with what happened to her as a child — how she found the strength to drag her terrible and long-buried memories into the light in order to move on.
    Beautifully written, this is a disturbing, compelling and ultimately inspirational story.

‘There are some stories that make you weep. There are some stories that reach out to touch you. Here is one....
    She remembers lying on the shelf in the morgue, willing people to know she was not dead. She remembers that better than she remembers yesterday sometimes.
    She is now almost 84 years old; a gentle, funny, sane old woman, who lives in the suburbs of Melbourne. She knows it took her a long time to write down her story.... “There are some things none of us would want to remember”....
    How do people survive a life of sorrow? How do they live on and breathe the clean air and think, this is going to be a good day? Shirley thinks she does it by believing that people are mostly good. When she says that I am rocked and wonder who the good people were in her life, and then I recall that, in the book, she paints the good people with bright colour. She embraced people who were kind to her like a thirsty plant drinks water....’

— Deborah Forster, The Melbourne Age

Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand (HarperCollins Australia, Sept. 2002)

Glyn Parry

Fiction, and fiction for young adults

Glyn is a highly talented award-winning writer for young adults. His novels includeMonster Man, LA Postcards, Radical Takeoffs, Stoked and Mosh. Sad Boys and Scooter Boy were published by Hodder Headline in 1998 and 1999.
    A recent title was Invisible Girl, published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 2003.
    His recent adult novel The Ocean Road was published in 2007 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press:

In the summer of 1976, Frank and Laura travel down south to a cottage by the sea with their son Toby. Toby lays bare all that he sees. It is the summer Frank is called away and Laura meets a man in the street. It is a summer of fragile lives and uncertain times, of loss and longing, and secrets that can destroy.


It is the summer one phone call
changes a marriage forever.

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