H.M Brown

H.M. Brown lives in country Victoria with her husband and two children, and together they run a small farm. She has been writing novels and screen plays for ten years. During this period wrote the critically acclaimed novels, Red Queen and The Good Daughter. Before settling down she worked and lived in various remote places around Australia. She spent her childhood in Tasmania, growing-up in a convict built house in Campbell Town. In her late twenties she was involved in a devastating farm accident, and now lives with challenges of a spinal injury.

Click here for "The Good Daughter" Press Release

Lyndall Spavrou

Author of Childrens books including "Baby Bielby and Wildcat

Bert van Bedaf is a reporter on the Great Southern Star in Leongatha, joining the paper in 2003. He has been a journalist for more than 30 years in The Netherlands, England and Australia. He is the author of About The Dutch. He also writes fiction and has published a variety of short stories and poetry over the years. He was a tutor in non-fiction writing at RMIT Tafe College and Adult Education in Melbourne and has conducted writing workshops in Meeniyan, Venus Bay and Inverloch.

Past Speakers

Bill Statham was born in Toowoomba in Queensland and grew up on a dairy farm on the fertile Darling Downs. When he was in his twenties he told friends that one day he would write a book. Twenty years later this pipedream became a reality when The Chemical Maze - Your Guide to Food Additives and Cosmetic Ingredients was first published.  Little did he realise all those years ago that it would become a best seller and create an awareness that would change many people’s lives for the better.

In the ten years leading up to the publication of his first book in 2001, Bill studied and practiced homeopathy, both in Australia and in England. It was during this time that he became increasingly concerned about the detrimental effects on people’s health caused by synthetic chemicals in foods, cosmetics and personal care products. The Chemical Maze was born out of a need to make it simpler and easier for people to recognise chemicals as additives and ingredients that have the potential to be harmful to health.

The Chemical Maze is now in its 4th edition and has sold over 112,000 copies, mostly in Australia and N.Z.  It is also published in the U.K. and North America and in six foreign languages – Polish, Latvian, Russian, Finnish, French and Italian.

In 2007 The Chemical Maze reached number 7 on the best seller list in New Zealand.

Bill lives with his wife and business partner Kay Lancashire in the beautiful village of Loch in South Gippsland.

CELEBRATED contemporary Australian poet Judith Rodriguez heads a stellar cast of writers lined up for a range of workshops during South Gippsland’s Literary Festival at Coal Creek Heritage Village on October 11-12.
Judith certainly fits the tone of the festival, which has as its theme The Magic of Words, which is abundantly reflected in her volumes of poetry. 
“Making writing live as a whole as well as in detail is the creative aim that interests me,” Judith said about her work.
“I have been teaching poetry for many years at different levels, including university, and have conducted many workshops in different settings.
“The idea of workshopping literature and especially poetry in such a beautiful historical setting at Coal Creek appealed to me and I’m looking forward to the event.”
Judith is joined as the top three presenters by Ann Cliff, well-known author of historical romantic fiction and former publisher Peter Sharpe, who will talk about the publishing industry in Australia and how to get published.
A host of other writers will hold workshops throughout the day at various buildings at the village. They are local historian Ray Walls, Mardan story writer Georgette Noelette, author of Jacksons Track Carolyn Landon, playwright Chris Hodson, Jillian Durance and Eyvette Stubbs in a combined effort, young adult writer Beth Montgomery, award winning author Jack Dann, Leongatha Lyric Theatre history writer David Tattersall and The Star journalist Bert van Bedaf.
Judith’s varied writing career took off more than 30 years ago. She continues to teach at various colleges and conduct workshops at Adult Education in Melbourne.
Her first solo book of poetry was Nu-Plastik Fanfare Red (1973). She has gone on to publish more than a dozen books of poems, including the prize-winning Water Life (1976), Mudcrab at Gambaro’s (1980) and New and Selected Poems (1988).
From 1979 to 1982, she was poetry editor of Meanjin, and from 1988 to 1997 she was a poetry editor with the publisher Penguin Australia.
In 1989 she accepted a lectureship in writing at Victoria College, which in 1993 became part of Deakin University. She was appointed area coordinator in professional writing at Deakin University in 1998. She retired from this position in 2003.
Judith, 72, received the Order of Australia for services to literature in 1994 and many poetry awards during her long career.
She was born Judith Green in Perth and grew up in Brisbane and was educated at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. She graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts. She then travelled to England, where she received a Master of Arts from Cambridge University in 1965.
She also created the libretto of the opera Lindy, about the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance, which premiered in 2002 at the Sydney Opera House.

Peter Sharpe

One of the most experienced book publishers in Australia. He has worked with and published for many major multinational publishers, Thomas Nelson (Thompson), Prentice Hall (Pearson), Jacaranda Wiley (John Wiley). He was Managing Director at the University of New South Wales Press for several years in the mid 1990's and operated his own publishing company for the decade after that. He has published some of the top selling textbooks ever in Australian tertiary education, as well as school and trade books. His knowledge of the publishing process and industry is extensive.  He has also edited and designed numerous books and has extensive book marketing and business experience. (He has also written a number of books himself.) He currently works at the South Gippsland Shire Council as Manager, Social and Economic Development.

 Michael Hyde

Michael’s most recent success is the series, ‘Change the Game’ - choose-your-own-adventure footy and soccer books that have become overnight favourites with young readers, 20,000 + copies being sold in the last year.
His bodyboarding novel, ‘Surfing Goliath’ (Lothian/Hachette), published in May 2006, sold out in three months.
His recent novels for Young Adults, ‘Hey Joe’, ‘MAX’ and ‘Tyger Tyger’ have experienced critical success and continue to be widely read and taught in many schools. His most recent work, 'Hey Joe' - about the Vietnam War, the movement against it and the sixties in Australia - was named as a Notable Book in the 2004 CBC Awards. Many of his short stories for Younger Readers are published in the Trend/Awesome Series including the popular titles: The Footy Coach from Hell, Seal saves the Island and How I got a girlfriend. Michael recently edited two senior anthologies for the Australian Association of English Teachers (AATE), ‘Hunger’(CBC Notable Book 2004) and ‘The Girl who Married a Fly’ (CBC Notable Book 2002). Both anthologies feature popular YA Australian writers (including Michael) and like his novels, enjoy significant sales.

After a long career as an English teacher Michael (with stints as a journalist and truck driver) now lectures in Professional Writing, Sports Writing and Children’s Texts at Victoria University. His many non-fiction works include being the series editor and writer for the national English Series, Englishworks, a writer for the Macmillan series Mosaic, and his own textbook The Diary of my Secret Life (a guide to the craft of writing). Other non-fiction works include the Richard Osborne biography, Ossie Rules and Asia at a Glance – a CD Rom and English Curriculum Units for secondary students.

Michael also conducts writing workshops for students and teachers across Australia. He lives in Melbourne with Gabrielle and Zachariah, the youngest of his four children. He loves the bush, the desert, the sea, Aussie Rules footy (especially Collingwood), canoeing and encouraging others to write.

Currently he is working on the sequel to ‘Hey Joe’, working title of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ (Vulgar Press); a football novel (Hardie Grant Egmont) and four extreme sports novels (Lothian/Hachette).

Click here for Michael Hyde Publications

Dr Barry Collett

Barry Collett is an Oxford professional historian of Renaissance Europe, but he also knows every inch of the bush and the small towns of Gippsland: he has grown up with its people; his ear is attuned to what they say and mean. He has a scholar’s command of the archival and printed materials, and a scrupulous respect for the evidence, but he has also written from the heart. He has given us a living and wonderfully fresh account of people of the past.

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Jillian Durance and Yvette Stubbs

Poets, Historians & Artists:

Jillian Durance has published " Still Going Strong, a book tracing the history ofthe 28 men from Moyarra who left to fight in the First World War

Yvette Stubbs and Jillian Durance have co-authored a book of poetry "The Naked and The Clothed"