Roderick Macleod Usher (born 1946 [1] ) is an Australian author living in Spain. [2]
Usher's father was American, and his mother was Australian. He grew up in Melbourne, where he studied law before taking up journalism. He now lives in Extremadura, Spain. [3]
He is a former chief sub-editor of The Sunday Times in London and a former literary editor of The Age in Melbourne. [4] Until 2001 he was senior writer for Time magazine in Europe. [4] Most of his working life has involved journalism, including ten years on Fleet Street, though he has also published several works of non-fiction, two collections of poetry and three novels.
His articles in Time magazine include "A Tall story for our time" (1996) and "Live and Let Die" (1998).
"A Tall Story for our Time", published in 1996, [5] discusses the hypothesis that a nation's average stature can be a measure of well being, more accurate than per capita income or GDP statistics. Height reflects diet, wealth, quality of living situations, stresses and other health factors. The data used to back up his height measurements in the different countries comes from various sources including records from Tall Persons Club of Great Britain and Ireland, the Marine Society, the National Guard and even the Royal military Academy at Sand Hurst.
Although Irish has been used as a literary language for more than 1,500 years, and modern literature in Irish dates – as in most European languages – to the 16th century, modern Irish literature owes much of its popularity to the 19th century Gaelic Revival, a cultural and language revival movement, and to the efforts of more recent poets and writers. In an act of literary decolonization common to many other peoples seeking self-determination, writers in Irish have taken the advice of Patrick Pearse and have combined influences from both their own literary history and the whole of world literature. Writers in Modern Irish have accordingly produced some of the most interesting literature to come out of Ireland, while being both supplemented and influenced by poetry and prose composed in the Irish language outside Ireland.
Charles Manning Hope Clark, was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume A History of Australia, published between 1962 and 1987. He has been described as "Australia's most famous historian", but his work has been the target of much criticism, particularly from conservative and classical liberal academics and philosophers.
Steele Rudd was the pen name of Arthur Hoey Davis an Australian author, best known for his short story collection On Our Selection.
Frank Thomas Moorhouse was an Australian writer who won major national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian and Swedish.
Robert Duncan Drewe is an Australian novelist, non-fiction and short story writer.
Leslie Allan Murray was an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spanned over 40 years and he published nearly 30 volumes of poetry as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings.
Evan Whitton was an Australian journalist.
Silas Kitto Hocking was a Cornish novelist and Methodist preacher. He is known for his novel for youth called Her Benny (1879), which was a best-seller.
There were two Australian periodicals called The Port Phillip Gazette.
Edward Charles Nimmervoll was an Australian music journalist, author and historian. He worked on rock and pop magazines Go-Set (1966–1974) and Juke Magazine (1975–92) both as a journalist and as an editor. From 2000, Nimmervoll was editor of HowlSpace, a website detailing Australian rock/pop music history, providing artist profiles, news and video interviews. He was an author of books on the same subject and co-authored books with musicians including Brian Cadd and Renée Geyer.
Leslie Allen Carlyon was an Australian writer and newspaper editor.
Douglas Stewart was a major twentieth century Australian poet, as well as short story writer, essayist and literary editor. He published 13 collections of poetry, 5 verse plays, including the well-known Fire on the Snow, many short stories and critical essays, and biographies of Norman Lindsay and Kenneth Slessor. He also edited several poetry anthologies.
William Peter Coleman was an Australian writer and politician. A widely published journalist for over 60 years, he was editor of The Bulletin (1964–1967) and of Quadrant for 20 years, and published 16 books on political, biographical and cultural subjects. While still working as an editor and journalist he had a short but distinguished political career as a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1968–1978 for the Liberal Party, serving both as a Minister in the State Cabinet and in the final year as Leader of the New South Wales Opposition. From 1981–1987 he was the member for Wentworth in the Australian House of Representatives.
Sir Henry Thomas Hopkinson was a British journalist, picture magazine editor, author, and teacher.
Creighton Lee Burns, AO was an Australian journalist and academic, who was editor-in-chief of The Age newspaper in Melbourne from 1981 to 1989.
The Conversation is a network of nonprofit media outlets publishing news stories and research reports online, with accompanying expert opinion and analysis. Articles are written by academics and researchers under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse without modification. Copyright terms for images are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. Its model has been described as explanatory journalism. Except in "exceptional circumstances", it only publishes articles by "academics employed by, or otherwise formally connected to, accredited institutions, including universities and accredited research bodies".
Cyril Alston Pearl was an Australian journalist, author, and television personality.
Daniel Lang was an American author and journalist. He worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker from 1941 until his death in 1981.
Montague Macgregor Grover, commonly referred to as "Monty Grover", was an Australian journalist, editor of the Sydney Sun.
Godfrey Smith FRSL was an English newspaper journalist closely associated with The Sunday Times of London throughout much of his career. He was editor of The Sunday Times Magazine for seven years and of the paper's Weekly Review for another seven. He was subsequently a columnist in the newspaper from 1979 to his retirement in 2004.