Craig Cormick – September 9 2018

Craig is a journalist, writer, teacher and science communicator. He has studied at the Universities of Canberra, Iceland, and Helsinki, and holds a PhD in Creative Communications from Deakin University. He has been Chair of the ACT Writers Centre and Writer-in-Residence at the University of Science in Penang, Malaysia. As well as Antarctica, Craig has a keen interest in history, his publications including Shipwrecks of the Southern Seas, The Last Supper: The creation and recreation of Alexander Pearce, the ‘cannibal convict’ of Van Diemen’s Land, Of One Blood: The Last Histories of Van Diemen’s Land; DIG: the Unwritten History of Burke and Wills, and Kurikka’s Dreaming, a creative telling of Finnish Utopian socialist Matti Kurikka’s attempt to establish a utopian colony in far north Queensland in 1899. Other works include collections of short fiction, such as The King of Patagonia, The Queen of Aegea and A Funny Thing Happened at 27,000 Feet, and two children’s books, Pimplemania and Time Vandals. Craig currently works as the manager of a government communications unit, providing information programmes on biotechnology. He commentates in the media on public attitudes towards new technologies and has represented the Australian Government at such science forums as APEC and OECD conferences.

In Bed with Douglas Mawson: Travels around Antarctica
New Holland, 2011; ISBN 9781742570082
In Bed with Mawson merges Craig’s two interests of science and creative writing as he relates his experiences as an Antarctic Arts Fellow in 2008, visiting the three Australian stations: Casey, Davis and Mawson. Mawson’s ill-fated but scientifically successful Australasian Antarctic Expedition sailed from Hobart in 1911, and this account follows Craig’s voyage from Hobart in 2008, through the wild Southern Ocean to the frozen continent where he muses about – and with – the great explorer and geologist Douglas Mawson. This is a humorous and thoughtful exploration of the enduring spirit of discovery, adventure and comradeship around Antarctica and a look at the past, present and future of Australian involvement there.

Unwritten Histories
Aboriginal Studies Press, 1998; ISBN 9780855753160
A witty and satirical revisiting of Australia’s heroic past, rediscovering the unrecorded and unacknowledged contributions of Indigenous Australians. Drawing on original records of the time, the spotlight is turned on those whom history had forgotten: great explorers, teachers, warriors and dreamers, who were there when Banks first saw a banksia or when Burke and Wills staggered on from Coopers Creek, but who vanished simply because their stories were unrecorded. Old heroes confess their darkest secrets, facing their own culpability in the destruction of societies and cultures, or blindly march towards their own fame, stamping firmly on law, conscience, and their own better judgement in the process. The combination of delicious humour and fantasy, and the true horror that must arise from any reading of our Indigenous history, make this collection at once playful and mordant, funny and frightening, and an exciting work of Australian fiction.