Phil Brown

Phil Brown was born in 1956 in Maitland New South Wales. At the age of five he moved to Hong Kong where his family was engaged in the construction business. (The Brown family, originally from London, were based in Shanghai, Macau and Hong Kong before coming to Australia) In Hong Kong he attended Kowloon Junior School and King George V School. The B... rown family migrated to Queensland's Gold Coast in 1970 and Phil completed his secondary schooling at Miami State High School where he developed a love of surfing and in interest in writing. That interest was later further explored at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba where Phil majored in journalism and studied literature with the man who was to become his literary mentor, the poet Bruce Dawe. Phil wrote journalism, poetry and short fiction for campus publications. Later Phil worked at Radio 4GG on the Gold Coast as an advertising copywriter before moving to central Queensland to start a career in journalism - first as a cadet on The Burnett Herald in Monto in 1979 and later as a graded journalist at The Morning Bulletin in Rockhampton for two years where he became arts and literary editor and wrote regular short stories for the group's community newspapers. His poetry was published in the Anthology 8 Poets 1978 (North Brisbane College of Advanced Education) and the following year in the prestigious Poetry Australia under the editorship of the poet Les Murray. Since then his poetry has appeared widely in publications including The Bulletin, The Weekend Australian, The Border Issue, Bystander, LINQ, Social Alternatives, The Courier-Mail and Imago. He has performed at Warana Writers Week, The Brisbane Festival, The Metro Arts, The Somerset Celebration of Literature, Wordpool, The Queensland Irish Association, The Hawthorn Readings (Melb.), La Mama (Melb) and the Brisbane Writers Festival. His poetry has featured on Radio National's Poetica program. Metro Community Press published his first book, Plastic Parables, Brisbane in 1991 and in 1993 his work ...Read More