AustLit

'There are many ideas of difficulty and struggle in relation to writing. One that is sometimes forgotten when a writer achieves a level of prominence is the struggle involved in finding a publisher and an audience. With Wayne Macauley some of these difficulties are clearly signalled, with post-it notes helpfully attached to signposts alerting fellow travellers to the challenges faced by writers who write in ways that might be considered atypical or difficult in the industry of Australian publishing in the early twenty-first century.'  (Introduction)

'Care and compassion, a fair go, freedom, honesty, trustworthiness, respect, and tolerance. These were the nine ‘Australian values’ that former Liberal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson demanded be taught in schools, especially Islamic schools, across the nation in 2005. How? Partly through the tale of John Simpson and his donkey, Murphy. They clambered selflessly up and down Gallipoli’s Shrapnel Valley with the bodies of Anzacs on their backs like Sisyphus’s boulder, their forty days of toil ended by a sniper’s bullet. Never mind that Simpson’s real surname was Kirkpatrick; that he did the equivalent work of many nameless others; or that Simpson was an illegal Geordie immigrant who had enlisted just for the free ticket back to England. ‘The man with the donkey’ has consistently proven too useful a tool to question for war recruiters and other patriotic tub-thumpers.' (Introduction)