John Birmingham

John Birmingham (born August 7, 1964) is an Australian author. Birmingham was born in Liverpool UK and migrated to Australia with his parents in 1970. He grew up in Ipswich, Queensland. He attended the St Edmunds Christian Brother's College, Ipswich, Queensland and the University of Queensland. His only stint of full time employment was as a researcher at the Defence Department. After this he returned to Queensland to study law but he did not complete his legal studies, choosing instead to pursue a career as a writer.

Arrest in Queensland

During this period he was one of the last people arrested under the state's Anti Street March legislation. Birmingham was convicted of displaying a sheet of paper with the words 'Free Speech' written on it in very small type. The local newspaper carried a photograph of him being frogmarched off to a waiting police paddy wagon.

Published Works

Birmingham is most notable for the novel He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (1994), which has since been turned into a play, film and a graphic novel. The sequel is The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (Duffy and Snellgrove, 1997). The play was written and produced by thirty-six unemployed actors. It went on to become the longest running stage play in Australian history.

Other works by him include the How To Be A Man, a semi-humorous guide to contemporary Australian masculinity and Off One's Tits, a collection of essays and articles previously published elsewhere. He also spent four years researching the history of Sydney for Leviathan: the unauthorised biography of Sydney (Random House, 1999, ISBN 0-09-184203-4). It won Australia's National Prize For Non-Fiction in 2002.

Axis of Time Trilogy

In 2004 he published Weapons of Choice, the first in the Axis of Time trilogy, a series of Tom Clancy-like techno-thrillers; simultaneously a satire of the technothriller and alternate history genres. Many writers from those genres appear as minor characters. It was published by Del Rey Books in the US and by Pan Macmillan in Australia.

The series tells of a multinational peacekeeping force from the early 21st century being taken back in time to 1942, where its presence completely changes the course of the Second World War.

In August 2005, the second book, Designated Targets was published in Australia. US publication followed in October.

The third and final book in the trilogy, Final Impact, was released in Australia in early August 2006, and will be released on January 30, 2007 in the US.

Writings on Indonesia

Birmingham has a degree in international relations and has written an essay about Australia's relations with Indonesia, "Appeasing Jakarta," which was published in the Quarterly Essay.

Birmingham on Greer on Irwin

In September 2006, Birmingham wrote a piece in the Australian lambasting Germaine Greer for an allegedly tactless article she'd written in The Guardian about Steve Irwin shortly after his death.

In Birmingham's response he attacked her as "childless", a "poorly sketched caricature of a harridan", a "feral hag", a "wretched bag lady" with a "redundant fright-mask" and a "creepy sexual consideration" for "hairless boys". It was subsequently criticised in a number of blogs and national newspapers for its alleged misogyny. Birmingham agreed the attack was personal, but denied that it was misogynist.

External links

• John Birmingham's blog
• ABC Queensland story on Birmingham
• ABC Radio National story on Leviathan
• Tracee Hutchison's response to Birmingham's Greer article in The Age
• Clive Hamilton's response in the Sydney Morning Herald

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