Larry Buttrose

Last updated

Larry Philip Buttrose (born 16 December 1952) is an Australian writer, journalist and academic. [1] He is the ghostwriter of the Saroo Brierley memoir A Long Way Home [2] (adapted for the screen as the major international feature film Lion ).

Contents

Personal life

Buttrose was born in Adelaide, South Australia. At the age of 17 he co-founded the poetry magazine Dharma (later titled Real Poetry) with his then partner Donna Maegraith and friend Stephen Measday. While at university he trained as a journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and after graduating he worked as a freelance journalist. He gained his PhD from the University of Adelaide in 2011. He now lives in Sydney with his wife and two children.

Career

Buttrose published his first collection of poems, One Steps Across The Rainbow in 1974, at the age of 21. His first major collection, The Leichhardt Heater Journey (1982), was the first title in the long-running Friendly Street Poets series. He also co-edited the Number 3 Friendly Street anthology with Peter Goldsworthy. Angus & Robertson published Buttrose's first book of travel writing, The King Neptune Day & Night Club in 1992, and the critically acclaimed best-seller Cafe Royale (later retitled The Blue Man) followed in 1997. In 2004, he collaborated on the memoir by Michael Hutchence's brother Rhett, Total Xcess, and other books followed, including Tales of the Popes (2009) and the satirical graphic novel Finding the Shelf Within (2009).

He has also written extensively for the stage, his produced works including Pallas (1987), Kurtz (1991), the co-written musical Hot Shoe Shuffle (1992) and Complaints (1996). The ABC has produced two plays for radio, Santo (1986) and Complaints (1993).

He has contributed journalism to Roadrunner (Australian music magazine) and Rolling Stone , and opinion to various newspapers.

His best known book is A Long Way Home , the Saroo Brierley memoir, which he ghost-wrote in 2012. He researched and wrote the book between September and December of that year, including research trips to Hobart to interview Saroo and his family, and a month-long journey to India with Saroo. There he met Saroo's Indian family, and travelled with Saroo on a rail journey across India, retracing for the first time the journey that Saroo took two and a half decades before as a young child, that ended him in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Buttrose completed the book in his Kolkata hotel room.

He has also taught writing and media at various Australian universities. He holds a PhD in creative writing from Adelaide University (2011).

Cabaret and comedy

In 1982 Buttrose joined Len Lindon's innovative comedy cabaret group Quietly Confident. The group moved to Sydney later that year, establishing itself in Surry Hills. They performed at many of the city's leading venues, including Kinselas, the Tivoli, Stranded and Art Unit. They released a single, Republic of Australia, [3] and in 1983 performed a self-devised play, Scenario X, about the sacking of the Whitlam Government, at the Nimrod Theatre. The group broke up that year, but in late 1983 Buttrose co-founded The Gap cabaret venue at the Sydney Trade Union Club with his then partner comedian Mandy Salomon, and their business partner, Judy Barnsley.

The Gap ran from 1983 to 1987, and helped launch the careers of a host of performers, including Salomon herself (with whom Buttrose collaborated in a creative partnership), Gretel Killeen and Julie McCrossin. Buttrose, Salomon and Barnsley also co-produced the Characters! series at The Gap and at the Sydney Theatre Company's Wharf Theatre, showcasing Australia's new generation of women comics, including Wendy Harmer, Mary-Anne Fahey, Gretel Killeen, Sue Ingleton, Angela Moore, Melanie Salomon, Victoria Roberts and Penny Biggins, poet Pam Brown, Sarah Miller (Told by an Idiot) and hosted by Mandy Salomon.

In 1986 Buttrose was approached by Mark Morgan of the Harold Park Hotel to start a weekly comedy night, called Comics in the Park. It quickly gained a following from audiences, and a number of Australia's leading comedians did their first performances there, including Bob Downe (whom Buttrose later managed), Flacco, Jimeoin, Kitty Flanagan, and the Umbilical Brothers. Others who performed there included Robin Williams, Vince Sorrenti, Austen Tayshus, George Smilovici, Steve Abbott, and Funny Stories.

Other interests

Buttrose plays squash and badminton, and in 2006 co-founded The Carringtonians, a long-running weekly drinks get-together for Blue Mountains writers and others, at the historic Carrington Hotel in Katoomba.

Books

Novels

Humour and graphic novel

Travel

Poetry

Non-fiction

Theatre

Radio plays

Film

Sources

Related Research Articles

National Library of Australia National reference library in Canberra, Australia

The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act 1960 for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people", thus functioning as a national library. It is located in Parkes, Canberra, ACT.

Ita Buttrose

Ita Clare Buttrose is an Australian journalist, businesswoman, television personality and author. She was the founding editor of Cleo, a high-circulation magazine aimed at women aged 20 to 40 that was frank about sexuality and, later, as the editor of the more conventional Australian Women's Weekly. She was the youngest person to be appointed editor of the Weekly, which was then, per capita, the largest-selling magazine in the world.

John Olsen (Australian artist)

John Henry Olsen, AO, OBE is an Australian artist and winner of the 2005 Archibald Prize. Olsen's primary subject of work is landscape.

Francis Smith (Australian politician)

Sir Francis Villeneuve Smith was an Australian lawyer, judge and politician, who served as the fourth Premier of Tasmania from 12 May 1857 until 1 November 1860.

Truth was a newspaper published in Sydney, Australia. It was founded in August 1890 by William Nicholas Willis and its first editor was Adolphus Taylor. In 1891 it claimed to be "The organ of radical democracy and Australian National Independence" and advocated "a republican Commonwealth created by the will of the whole people", but from its early days it was mainly a scandal sheet. Subsequent owners included Adolphus Taylor, Paddy Crick and John Norton.

Rusty Bugles was a controversial Australian play written by Sumner Locke Elliott in 1948. It toured extensively throughout Australia between 1948–1949 and was threatened with closure by the New South Wales Chief Secretary's Office for obscenity.

Walter Miller (wrestler) Polish wrestler

Walter Miller was the middleweight wrestling champion in 1919.

Luke Icarus Simon is an Australian author, poet, actor, playwright and screenplay writer.

<i>Bells Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer</i>

Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, also published as Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle, was a weekly English language newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia between 1845 and 1870.

John Sinclair (Jack) Lumsdaine was an Australian singer and songwriter.

Sunshine Coast Football is the governing body of football (soccer) on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. It is a member zone of Football Queensland and Football Federation Australia. The North Coast Soccer Association was formed in 1968. Teams from Caloundra and Woombye were soon formed, joined later that year by Maroochydore and Beerwah. Club numbers have continued to expand and as of 2018 the Sunshine Coast Football Zone now incorporates more than 6,000 players in 18 clubs stretching from Bribie Island in the south to Gympie in the North.

Isle of the Dead (Tasmania) Protected area in Tasmania, Australia

Isle of the Dead is a small island adjacent to Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia. The island is historically significant as it retains an Aboriginal coastal shell midden, one of the first recorded sea-level benchmarks, and one of the few preserved Australian convict-period burial grounds. Isle of the Dead forms part of the Port Arthur Historic Site. This site is part of Australian Convict Sites and is listed as a World Heritage Property, as it represents convictism in the era of British colonisation.

<i>A Long Way Home</i> (book) Non-fiction book by written by Saroo Brierley with Larry Buttrose

A Long Way Home is a non-fiction book by Indian-Australian businessman Saroo Brierley written together with Larry Buttrose. The text was initially released in Australia on 24 June 2013 via Viking, then re-released internationally in 2014, and adapted into a major film in 2016. It is reported that Brierley is currently writing a prequel to A Long Way Home, “the story of both my mothers – biological and adoptive – before I was in the picture.”

<i>Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales</i> Academic journal

Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, also known as the New South Wales Government Gazette, is the government gazette of the Government of New South Wales in Australia. The Gazette is managed by the New South Wales Parliamentary Counsel's Office.

Louis Lavater

Louis Isidore Lavater was an Australian composer and author born in Victoria, of Swedish extraction. He published more than a hundred musical works. He prepared musical settings of popular folklore by collaborating with well known Australian lyricists of his time, including Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson and Mary Gilmore. He was a leading proponent of the Australian bush ballad as a vehicle for music education. In 1938, Alfred Hill composed a musical setting of Lavater's verse Mopoke. Lavater's words were also set by Australian composers Doctor Ruby Davis and Fanny Turbayne.

Oswald Francis Mingay was a public servant, wireless signalman in the Australian Army during World War I, and an early wireless experimenter. He was, however, best known as a journalist, editor, and publisher of radio-related publications over several decades. He was radio manager for Burgin Electric, and influenced that firm to establish Australia's first Class B broadcasting station in 1924.

<i>Australian Art: a Monthly Magazine & Journal</i>

Australian Art: a Monthly Magazine & Journal, was a monthly magazine published in Sydney, Australia. The publication's focus was to chronicle the progress of the fine arts in the Australasian colonies. Issues also included artist-proof engravings.

Janet Millett Writer about life in Western Australia in the 1860s

Janet Millett (1821-1904) was an English writer about life in Western Australia in the 1860s, best known for her book An Australian Parsonage or, the Settler and the Savage in Western Australia.

Eugen Bacon is an African Australian computer scientist and author of speculative fiction.

References

  1. ↑ National Library of Australia listing for Larry Buttrose – Australian Writer – http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/458941?q=larry+buttrose&c=people
  2. ↑ Listing for 'Long Way Home' at the National Library of Australia - http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/178430398
  3. ↑ "Republic of Australia" video clip - https://roadrunnertwice.com.au/2015/03/quietly-confident-republic-of-australia-2/
  4. ↑ Record of Book held at National Library of Australia first published in 1998 in Pymble, N.S.W.: By Flamingo Press http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/388473
  5. ↑ The King Neptune Day & Night Club by Larry Buttrose, part of the Trove collection at the National Library of Australia – http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34862789?
  6. ↑ Cafe Royale by Larry Buttrose. Book held in the Trove collection at National Library of Australia – http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/14981514?
  7. ↑ 'Dead Famous' by Larry Buttrose – Published by New Holland – Entry for book on publishers website -http://www.newholland.com.au/product.php?isbn=9781741105643
  8. ↑ Tales of The Popes by Larry Buttrose. Published by New Holland 2009 – Trove Collection at the National Library of Australia http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/25998660?
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.