The life of the hack novelist is not a munificent one. To pay the bills I write non-fiction and do research on commission. Not that these commissions aren't often fun, not that the research isn't often fascinating. More often that not I'm only too keen to drop my current novel and work on a short-term project. I recently researched and wrote a potted history of the University of Adelaide. I've plumbed the depths of the Daisy Bates archives for Julia Blackburn's Daisy Bates in the Desert. I have written at great length about the uses to which people put the Australian made data logger, the Datataker. I have written for Manufacturer's Monthly, Australian Electronics Engineering, What's New in Radio Communications and many other trade journals.
One of the things I do well is write about science and technology in a way that ordinary people can understand. I do this because - although fascinated by science and technology - I have no formal training beyond high school physics. I am very good at making scientists, engineers, geneticists, meteorologists and the like explain themselves in ways that I can understand. And once I've understood them, I can write clear, limpid accounts of their researches that others can also understand.
If you want something
researched and written up, don't hesitate to contact
me.
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