Past Programs
Family and Children - 2008
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004
Colin Thiele
11/12/2008
Australian writer the late Colin Thiele began writing fiction for children and young adults nearly forty years ago, when he published his first book The Sun on the Stubble, which drew on his own childhood experience in the German farming settlements in South Australia's Barossa Valley.
Thiele has since written over ninety books, including non-fiction and biography. In this program Colin Thiele talks about his interest in writing for young people, his long teaching career, and his passion for the Australian environment, which has provided the setting for some of his most popular fiction, including Storm Boy and Blue Fin.
Colin Thiele died in 2006
Margaret Gleeson
06/11/2008
Margaret Gleeson was born in 1945, and raised in the model 'garden suburb' of Daceyville. Daceyville was the first purpose-built public housing project in New South Wales, a roomy suburb complete with civic facilities, fair rents and priority to returned soldiers.
There was such an unusual air of security and stability in this largely Catholic working-class community that Margaret grew up feeling sorry for the poor folk who actually had to buy their own homes.
