AustLit

Film maker, poet and printmaker, Solrun Hoaas was born in Norway, grew up in China and Japan and returned to Norway, studying Arts and Social Anthropology at Oslo University. In Kyoto, Japan, she studied theatre and trained as a Noh mask maker. She worked as a teacher and lecturer of Japanese and as a journalist and interpreter.

Hoaas wrote and directed film and documentary including Sacred Vandals (1983), Green Tea and Cherry Ripe (1989), Pyongyang Diaries (1997), Rushing to Sunshine (2001), the feature film Aya (1990) and At Edge (1981), a documentary on the poet Judith Wright. Solrun Hoaas lived and worked in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory and Melbourne, Victoria.

Lisbet De Castro Lopo was born in Denmark and graduated from the University of Copenhagen with a Master of Science (equiv.) degree and Diploma of Education before undertaking postgraduate study, tutoring and lecturing in the United States. At the University of Wisconsin she was awarded a Master of Arts degree and was also married there. In 1967 she migrated to Perth, Western Australia, with her husband and two children. De Castro Lopo moved to Newcastle and, after graduating as a Doctor of Philosophy, continued her career as an academic teacher. From 1981 to 1992 she was coordinator of the Hunter Area Migrant Health Service's Interpreter Service, and Danish interpreter for the Migrant Health Service and the Ethnic Affairs Commission. From 1985 to 1992 she was Honorary Secretary of the management committee of the Newcastle and Hunter Migrant Resource Centre.

On her retirement in 1992, De Castro Lopo joined the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), Hunter Region, served as its president (1994-1997) and was vice-president in 1998. During her presidency De Castro Lopo was also the Hunter Writers' Centre representative on the State Council of the FAW. She was a member of the Hunter Writers' Centre from its inception, and also a member of the NSW Writers' Centre and the National Book Council of Australia.

De Castro Lopo published stories, reviews, essays and two novels of which her first was published in 1995. In January 1997, De Castro Lopo was one of the seven founders of what became Catchfire Press. In her last years she worked also as a travel guide to groups of elderly Danish tourists visiting Newcastle and the Hunter, and as a lecturer on Australian social and cultural life.

Axel Poignant, of Anglo-Swedish heritage, was educated partly in Sweden. After he moved to Perth, Western Australia, in 1930, he began to pursue his interest in photography. He was particularly interested in photographing the Australian landscape and native animals, and authored and illustrated books on the subject, including Bush Animals of Australia (1949), and The Improbable Kangaroo and Other Australian Animals (1965).

Poignant also developed an affinity with Aboriginal people and photographed them extensively, which led to him spending two months in Arnhem Land with them in 1952. He also photographed Australian writers and artists, including Patrick White and Judith Wright (qq.v.), and his photographs have been widely exhibited. Poignant also held various jobs in radio and print media, as well working on the film The Overlanders (1946), and also as a cinematographer on a film about the Aboriginal artist Albert Namitjira, which was released as Namatjira the Painter (1947). He also worked on the short film Indonesia Calling (1946), a film made by Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens in Australia, which was banned from export because it concerned the liberation of the Netherlands Indies and was considered anti-Dutch by the censorship board.

His books for children were written in collaboration with his wife, Roslyn Poignant (q.v.) In 1956 Poignant left Australia and settled in London where he worked as a photo-journalist for the Observer and the London Times. A selection of his photographs was published in a book entitled Axel Poignant : Photographs 1922-1980 (1984).

Stig Hokanson arrived in Australia in 1966 and soon afterwards found employment in the advertising department of Sydney television station, Channel 10. The following year he moved to Brisbane and secured a position with the Courier Mail. When Queensland Newspapers was acquired by Rupert Murdoch in 1982 Hokanson left the industry to pursue an academic career. He was awarded a B.A. (Hons) from Griffith University and later taught there as well as at The Queensland University of Technology. His 1987 dissertation, 'Arrival, Acceptance and Abolition - Indentured Labour in the Queensland Sugar Industry 1863-1913' examines an important period of labour relations in Colonial Queensland and its immediate aftermath.

In 1988 Hokanson completed post-graduate degree studies in Education at The University of Queensland and went on to teach English and History at several Brisbane high schools before switching to primary teaching and eventually Special Education. He retired in 2005.

A Freemason since 1971, Hokanson has written short biographical articles about prominent former members of his Brisbane Lodge for its newsletter Thespian TImes. Between 1994 and 1999 he edited Queensländeren for Brisbane's Swedes Down Under Club (1989-), and in the mid-1990s collaborated with Eileen B. Johnson, John Stanley Martin on One Way Passage: Swedish Migrants to Australia in the James Sanderson Archive (1996).

A regular editorial contributor and feature writer for Thespian Times, the Queensland Freemason and assorted historical journals and periodicals, Hokanson began contributing biographies to the Australian Variety Theatre Archive in 2013 and soon afterwards established his own website.

Hokanson is also a registered civil marriage and funeral celebrant, and a long time member of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland.

Paul Parv was born in Laura, Finland and came to Australia from Estonia. After his arrival in Australia he first worked as a gardener, then worked for the Department of Defence in the Northern Territory. His experiences in the Northern Territory influenced his 1991 autobiographical novel Goodpeller Tucker.

Parv obtained a diploma from the Institute of Engineering Technology Australia of which he became a member. He worked as a layout artist for Nock & Kirby and as an advertising consultant and freelance cartoonist. For the last years of his life he lived in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. Parv married the romance novelist Valerie Parv (q.v.).