Author Info: 
I held the ancient map with clues to a lost city, called Lijian, meaning Rome, located somewhere in the Gobi Desert. How could I resist? How could anybody?
That search flung me to wild places, crazy adventures, a massacre, wonderful friendships , some truly grotesque feasts, (Is that a sheep’s eye in my soup?) and one summer day, I found myself standing beneath a willow tree near a lake in China, where an old priest, with trembling hand and shaky English, said, ‘Daweh and Ke Li Se Ting, from this day husband and wife, love each other like Christ loved Christmas.’
The search for Lijian became my book, Black Horse Odyssey, Wakefield Press, 1991. Then a Discovery Channel documentary, Rome in China, 2005.
When a publisher asked me to write about Australia’s most famous hermit, a man called Possum, I was fascinated by the story. That journey took me into the Australian bush and the history of a vanishing Australia. I guess that one of the best parts of an historian’s job is to travel back in time and rescue people and their stories from oblivion.
Time Raiders is about spectacular rescue missions into the past.
The hunt for my stories has taken me from blizzards in Siberia to deserts along the Silk Road, into jungles, an Italian palace, and pubs in outback Australia.
What have I written? Along the way, I’ve written books of fiction for young readers, history, biography, travel, business and cultural relations, texts for secondary and tertiary students, newspaper articles, reviews, children’s television scripts, documentary film scripts, briefs for Overseas Aid Programs, and fifty journals of research notes.
Awards:
- Visiting Fellowship in History at University of New England.
- Virgiliana Medal, Italian Encyclopedic Institute, for identification of Lijian.
- Christina Stead Award, Runner up for biography, 1994 for No Bed of Roses
- N.S.W. Premier's Award, Short list 1999 and CBC Notable Book, 1999, for
A Man Called Possum, co-author Max Jones. - Children's Book Council Notable Books, Cliff Hanger series; shortlisted for WAYRBA (WA Children's Choice), KOALA (NSW Children's Choice)
- Young Adult Library Services Association, Devil's Island, on list of Best Audio Books for Young Adults, 2003.
- 4 literature and 4 film writing grants.
