The Satchel – a fictionalised account of Henry Hellyer’s 1828 Expedition to Fury Gorge – to be published in October in the Forty South Short Story Anthology 2021
Shortlisted for the Tasmanian Writer’s Prize
Lobster Tales #5 – Inside the Mountain
On Christmas Day 2020 I accompanied Invertebrate Biologist Niall Doran on an adventure up, down, around and inside kunanyi in search of some quirky prehistoric relics of Gondwana – the intriguing mountain shrimp and the elusive Tasmanian cave spider. Read about it in FortySouth Tasmania
Lobster Tale #4 – Lobster Falls
The first encounter of whites with the lobster led to one of the bloodiest episodes of the Black War
Winner of the Van Diemen History Prize
Insubordination and Improper Intimacy
Sex, Violence and Mutiny Aboard the Cape Packet
Lobster Tale #3 – Literary Lobsters
Freshwater crayfish lurk beneath the surface of Tasmanian literature. Read about reading about lobsters in FortySouth Tasmania
Astacopsis tricornis, from south-west Tasmania, depicted as “Freshwater Crayfish” by W.B. Gould, from the Sketchbook of Fishes (c1832). A. tricornis features in Richard Flanagan’s novels ‘Death of a River Guide’ and ‘Gould’s Book of Fish’.
The Alarm
The “Extinction” edition of Science Write Now features an essay on one of last summer’s lobster hunting expeditions
Lobster Tales go live at FortySouth online
The new FortySouth website went live this week. There is some fantastic content available there, including Lobster Tales and other articles from from my back catalogue
Lobster Tale #2 Ellen Clark
The Lobster unlocks the backrooms of Melbourne Museum and we meet the “remarkable” Ellen Clark
Lobster Tale #1 – Lobster à la library
Northwest Van Diemen’s Land, February 1828. John Helder Wedge catches and eats the lobster. But that’s not all he captures on this expedition.
Coming Soon! Lobster Tales
Everywhere I look, I see lobsters. Other people look in the same places and don’t notice them, but the lobsters are there. And I’ve found them in some unusual places. In old paintings and among the handwritten pages of diaries; in the journals of explorers and in colonial newspapers; and in people’s memories and family stories. I am talking about real lobsters, lutaralipina, Tasmania’s endangered giant freshwater crayfish. The more I learn about Tasmania, its people and its history, the more I find the lobster, and vice versa.
