Willy Lit Fest: Back to where it all started

In June at the Williamstown Literary Festival I’ll be running a session about the Melbourne Circle project, the two-year walk I undertook with my late wife Lynne that resulted first in a blog and then my memoir Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss. This will be a welcome opportunity to return to the place where …

The Museum of Loss and Renewal

In September 2022 I had the privilege of spending a month in residence at The Museum of Loss and Renewal in the village of Collemacchia, Italy. The Museum of Loss and Renewal is a cultural project run by Edwin Janssen and Tracy MacKenna, artists and curators who have established a residency program to enable artists …

Talking psychogeography on Life Matters

I had a lovely conversation with Hilary Harper on Radio National’s ‘Life Matters’ program about walking the streets of Melbourne with my late wife, Lynne. On our two-year walk around and through the suburbs of Melbourne, Lynne and I described a kind of wobbly circle, beginning in Williamstown, passing through 50 or so suburbs on …

Melbourne Circle book published in December

My new book Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss was launched on 3 December 2020. You can buy the book here, here, here or ask at your local bookshop. The cover art, by the Melbourne artist Jim Pavlidis, captures exactly what I am trying to express in the book: the sense of magic and mystery …

Ned Kelly Awards shortlist

The shortlists for the 2020 Ned Kelly Awards have been announced and I’m absolutely stoked that my font-based mystery, Death of a Typographer is on the shortlist for best Australian crime novel of the year. The judges described it as a ‘quirky and original story which is funny and very Melbourne’. Thank you very much! …

Australian Book Design Awards – cover of the year!

I was absolutely thrilled when Stephen Banham won the Designers’ Choice Cover of the Year award at the 2020 Australian Book Design Awards for his brilliant, witty design for Death of a Typographer. The Cover of the Year Award was shared between two books: Death of a Typographer and The Glad Shout, designed by Jenny …

Ghost signs on Channel 9

This clip recently appeared on the Channel 9 news in Melbourne. It features me talking to reporter Tony Jones about some of the little-known stories behind old Melbourne signage. Some of these signs are described in more detail on my blog Melbourne Circle, and in the forthcoming book Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss. They’re …

Melbourne Circle: the book

Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss was published in December 2020. It is an account of a journey on foot around Melbourne in the years 2014-16 which I made with my late wife, Lynne. On the way we observed ghost signs, derelict buildings and lost places, and we uncovered countless forgotten stories and characters from …

A chat with 30 Books

Stella Glorie of the Aussie book blog Thirty Books recently interviewed me about my novel Death of a Typographer. We had a lovely chat about typography, Dutch design, men writing women characters and avocados. Stella also asked me for some recommendations of Australian books I’ve recently enjoyed – I mentioned Nick Earls’ Wisdom Tree novellas, …