Ashwin Casolin - Townsville City Council

Townsville Authors online at www.townsville.qld.gov.au/facilities/libraries
Ashwin
Hettie Ashwin [After the Rains & other stories, Literary Licence]
www.hettieashwin.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/#!/HettieAshwin
My humorous novel Literary Licence and a collection of short stories After the
Rains & other stories were self published in 2011.
My short stories have been published in America, United Kingdom and Australia, in
magazines and online, including in Skive, The Outpost, The Yellow Room, Ripples Magazine,
Linnet Wings, Artgaze Magazine and the Queensland Writers Centre magazine WQ. My nonfiction
writing encompasses the boating scene and I have been widely published including in
Cruising Helmsman, Multihull World, Afloat, Yachting Monthly, and Practical Boat-Owner.
Several of these articles allude to the humorous side of boating. My speculative fiction novel
The Mask of Deceit was highly commended for a Varuna Writers Scholarship in 2007. It has
been signed with Morris Publishing for spring publication 2012.
My writing has been broadcast on ABC Radio National for the Book Show. I collaborated to
write a humorous radio play in 2006 for ABC North Queensland which was subsequently
produced for the Townsville Writers Festival. My blog highlights my writing successes and has
a dedicated following. I also post monologues on YouTube and contribute to the ABC Pool
website.
Casolin
Mary Casolin [Blossoms of Snow, Saffron Sunsets]
Mary Casolin’s parents were born in Torrebelvicino, Provincia di Vicenza,
Italy. Mary was born in Innisfail, and grew up in Monica Street. She gained her
Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Education, and a PhD. from James Cook
University. As a secondary school teacher she taught Sciences and Maths,
and later Italian at the University. After retiring Mary started writing poetry and
joined Writers in Townsville Society. She has embarked on an autobiography,
with episodes of psychological interpretation for some of the more obscure reasons behind
reported incidences. This brings her to the satisfying final movement of her life

Townsville Authors online at www.townsville.qld.gov.au/facilities/libraries
Gibson-Wilde
Dorothy M. Gibson-Wilde PhD, OAM
[A Pattern of Pubs: Hotels of Townsville 1864-1914]
Consultant in history and heritage
Dr Dorothy M. Gibson-Wilde is the author or co-author of eleven major
publications relating to Australian Federation, to Queensland and Townsville
history, as well as being a contributor to four other major publications. In
addition she has written over 100 journal and newspaper articles, as well as numerous
unpublished papers and reports. Born in Townsville, she spent her earliest years in
Proserpine before returning with her parents. She has spent several years overseas and has
undertaken research in a various libraries and museums in Europe and the United States.
However, she enjoys best living in and writing about the history of Townsville.
Green
Tony Green [The Second Beginning]
www.thesecondbeginning.com/
Tony Green was born and raised in the Black Country, West Midlands, UK.
Over a fifty-six-year working life, he has had well over one hundred different
jobs, including forge worker, rigger & scaffolder, miner, excavator driver,
sheet metal worker, door-to-door salesman, real estate salesman,
businessman, wildlife carer, taxi driver and won an award for the best door-to-door vacuum
cleaner salesman in Australia. He served in the British Army Territorials and the Australian
Army Reserves. He lives with his wife in Townsville, Australia and has six children, thirteen
grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and is well on the way to Greening the planet.
Hannay
Barbara Hannay [Molly Cooper’s Dream Date, The Bridesmaid’s Baby]
Books: 39 titles for Harlequin Mills and Boon
Sales: over 5 million
Translations: 26 different languages
Awards: Barbara has received three nominations for RITA awards from
Romance Writers of America. These awards are judged by fellow authors, and are highly
prized in the industry – romance writing’s equivalent to the Oscars. Barbara won a RITA for
best traditional romance for Claiming His Family in 2007, and won the Australian R*BY award
for best category romance in 2005 for Her Playboy Challenge.
Reading and writing have always been a big part of Barbara Hannay’s life. She wrote her first
short story at the age of eight for the Brownie’s writer’s badge. It was about a girl who’s
devastated when her family has to move from the city to the Australian Outback.
Since then, a love of both city and country lifestyles has been a continuing theme in Barbara’s
books and in her life. Although she has mostly lived in cities where she was an English
teacher for many years, now that her family has grown up and she’s a full time writer, she
enjoys a country lifestyle.
Barbara and her husband live on a misty hillside in Far North Queensland’s Atherton
Tableland. When she’s not lost in the world of her stories, she’s enjoying farmers’ markets,
gardening clubs and writing groups, or preparing for visits from family and friends.
Barbara records her country life in her blog Barbwired and her website is
www.barbarahannay.com

Townsville Authors online at www.townsville.qld.gov.au/facilities/libraries
Hooper
Colin Hooper [Angor to Zillmanton: Stories of North Queensland’s deserted
towns]
As an engineer, Colin has background in mining yet his passion is
researching and compiling the history, maps, town plans, photos and the
stories of north Queensland. His research spans over two decades and he is
currently embarking on ten volumes covering north Queensland.
Angor to Zillmanton is regarded as the encyclopaedic reference to north Queensland and
chronicles 520 deserted towns and mining camps. It is entering its 7 th edition. Colin says,
'Writing this book has been a journey. Its well springs covered most of Queensland from a boy
running through the scrubs with a dog and a rifle, learning of the bullockies and their teams
and the old fossickers' huts of beaten kerosene tins on White Hill at Clermont, to the man
receiving instruction in tin prospecting with old miners at Herberton and gold with the solitary
prospector on the Palmer. It travelled back through our past and on into our future with the
hospitality of the bush folk, their stories, theories and dreams. It led past the realisation of
changes in attitudes of all the people who made and make up this country.”
Isaacson
Ross Isaacson [Tiny Office: Great Views]
Aussie larrikin Ross Isaacson was born in 1944 in the Riverland district
at Waikerie in South Australia. Commencing his working life on the
family fruit properties, he remained in the Riverland for 30 years. Not
being content to pick fruit all his life, Rossco left the fruit farming and his role as Waikerie’s
youngest Local Government Councillor to pursue a flying career, and has lived in Townsville,
Cairns, Brisbane, Adelaide and Whyalla.
Having now retired from commercial flying after nearly 18,000 hours flying, his great
enjoyment is being out in nature. “I enjoy camping, fishing, four-wheel driving and canoeing,
as well as great company and a nice dinner – even if I have to do the cooking! The camp
oven is my speciality.”
Ross lives in Townsville with his partner and is currently working on his second book, a novel.
Kelso
Sylvia Kelso [Riversend, Amberlight]
www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Sylvia-Kelso-s-Bookshelf/
Sylvia Kelso lives in north Queensland, works part-time at James Cook
University, and has been writing or telling stories for as long as she
remembers.. She is a contributing editor for Paradoxa: Studies in World
Literary Genres and recently guest edited a special volume of Paradoxa on
Ursula K. Le Guin. Her first fantasy novel, Everran’s Bane, was published in 2005, and two of
her novels have been shortlisted in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards. Her latest
release is The Solitaire Ghost and The Time Seam, books 1 and 2 of Blackston Gold, a
contemporary north Queensland fantasy.

Townsville Authors online at www.townsville.qld.gov.au/facilities/libraries
Lake
Fiona Lake [Life as an Australian Horseman]
www.fionalake.com.au
For more than 25 years Fiona Lake has specialised in photographing
and writing about Australia’s largest cattle stations, which are the largest in the world. Fiona
has published two coffee-table style books called A Million Acre Masterpiece and Life as an
Australian Horseman. Best sellers, these unique records of Australian outback culture are
sold all over the world via her website. The cattle stations included are located across the top
half of the continent - between Queensland’s remote Cape York Peninsula and Channel
Country, throughout the historic Northern Territory and across Western Australia’s beautiful
Kimberley region.
Fiona’s work featured in an ABC television Landline story and she has also held numerous
exhibitions in city and rural locations located between Melbourne and Cairns, opened by a
variety of people such as Governor General Michael Jeffrey and Peter Holmes a Court.
In 2011 Fiona’s website was selected for inclusion in the National Library of Australia’s
Pandora project, which records websites deemed to be of significant cultural importance for
posterity.
Pryor
Boori Monty Pryor [Shake a Leg, Maybe Tomorrow, My Girragundgi]
Storyteller / Writer / Performer / Australian Children’s Laureate
Boori is a multi-talented performer who has worked in numerous industries
including film, television, modeling, sport, music and theatre-in-education. He
is also known as an articulate public speaker on Aboriginal issues. Monty was
born in Townsville, north Queensland. His father was from the Birrigubba of
the Bowen and Whitsunday region and his mother is from Yarrabah (near Cairns), a
descendant of the Kungganji
Boori has collaborated with Meme McDonald on five books including the bestseller Maybe
Tomorrow which received a Special Commendation at the 1998 Human Rights Awards. Their
second book, My Girragundji, was awarded The Children’s Book Council of Australia 1999
Book of The Year Award. In 2000 The Binna Binna Man received three of the NSW Premier’s
Literary Awards including Book of the Year. Early in his career Boori received an award for
the promotion of indigenous culture from The National Aboriginal and Islander Observance
Committee. His recent picture book with Jan Ormerod, Shake a Leg, was awarded the Prime
Minister’s Literary Award 2011, and in 2012 Boori was named Children’s Laureate for
National Year of Reading.

Townsville Authors online at www.townsville.qld.gov.au/facilities/libraries
Simpson
Donald Simpson [Some Magnetic Island Plants]
www.somemagneticislandplants.com.au/
Donald Simpson was born in Townsville in 1929, and went to school here. He
moved to Brisbane to continue his education, and worked as a teacher and a
headmaster, first in Queensland, and then in England. He retired in 1994 and
came to live on Magnetic Island, a place much loved by him from many
holidays there as a boy. Although mathematics was his subject, he has always been
interested in things that grow (he was head of an agricultural school for some years), and this
encouraged him to photograph and write the series of volumes on island plants.
Simpson
Lindsay Simpson [Honeymoon Dive, The Curer of Souls]
Lindsay Simpson is the author and co-author of eight books including the
bestselling Brothers in Arms, co-authored with Sandra Harvey about the
Milperra bikie massacre which has been made into a six-part mini series by
Screentime, producers of Underbelly. Lindsay is the Co-ordinator of Write in
the Tropics, the postgraduate writing program at James Cook University
www.jcu.edu.au/writeinthetropics/. Her novel, The Curer of Souls was shortlisted for the Colin
Roderick award in 2007 and that same year she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement
Award by the Ned Kelly Crime Writers Association. Her latest book Honeymoon Dive about
Tina Watson’s death from scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef was co-authored with
Jennifer Cooke.