At Wordy-Gurdy we are proud of our wide-ranging practice. It gives us an edge when it comes to forging links among seemingly unconnected things. Our experience stretches across music, visual arts, popular culture, business, science, health and the media (even managing an Aboriginal art centre!).

We know about communicating ideas or information in meaningful, concise text.

From research to writing, we give each project singular attention. With an expert production team to call upon, we can take small or large projects from raw idea to finished product.

recent work

War and Peace
The Saigon of The Quiet American still breathes, 55 years on
The writer Graham Greene lived in Ho Chi Minh City when it was still called Saigon. It was over a half-century ago now, and the Vietnamese were shaking off the grip of the French.
But even though the French are gone, their culture is not so easy to vanquish. You see it in the grand colonial buildings. You hear it every time a Vietnamese person calls you “Madame” in a shop, a market or a restaurant.
Full story published in World Enough, ed Brian Edwards, Mattoid/Grange, 2010
read full story (.pdf 115kb)

advertorial

Kimberley Aboriginal Artists was launched in Darwin in August (Inflight magazine).
see spread (.pdf 463kb)

catalogue essay

The ochre painters of Warmun, in the Kimberley (ReDot Gallery, Singapore)
read story (.pdf 16kb)

Catalogue essay
Senior painters Patrick Mung Mung & Betty Carrington (Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne)
exhibition catalogue (.doc 23kb)

cover story

Sandra Sully, Australia's Brainiest quizmaster and Ten Late News anchor featured in a cover story for Aura: the lifestyle magazine of Queensland. 'I can never get Queensland out of my blood,' she said. 'There's something about the light, the heat, the humidity. When the grass is mown on a Saturday afternoon, it smells different.'
read story (.pdf 20kb)

cover story

Those who have seen Bob Brozman on stage will have been struck by this bundle of pent-up energy let loose on an array of exotic stringed instruments. Plucking and tugging at the strings, tapping the wood or metal body, whooping and singing, laughing and joking, he is a musical tsunami. But as he plays he also educates, outlining the origins of the music. (Rhythms)
read story (external link)

feature

Ned Kelly has been prominent in the minds of Australians since the 1870s, but who was he really? A major exhibition explored the plethora of images.
full article (.pdf 188kb)

feature

Where did the songs come from? And where are they going? Gija song woman Peggy Patrick knows nearly all the songs of the Kimberley, and linguist Frances Kofod is battling to keep them alive. (Rhythms)
read story (.pdf 48kb)

interview

Sculptors Linde Ivimey and Bruce Armstrong talk about their Richmond home-studio space
read story (.pdf 47kb)

profile

From the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band to the National Junk Band, from The Wiggles to Badcop Badcop, from Circus Oz to David Bowie's China Girl, his originality and unpredictable exuberance is still as fresh as it was in the '70s. The astounding Mic Conway.
read story (.pdf 72kb)

research

The Hawaiian music scene in Australia (1920–55), a 30,000-word co-write with Rebecca Coyle (Perfect Beat magazine, Macquarie University) read story (.pdf 2.12mb).

review

Word Bytes: writing in the information society
Reprinted in Catchword: Newsletter of the Society of Editors (Tasmania), Winter 2010 and Blue Pencil: Newsletter of the Society of Editors (NSW), October 2010.
Book review published in Newsletter, Society of Editors (Vic), October 2009
Does the world need another volume on writing? Browse through any search engine or bookshop and you'd be forgiven for thinking the discipline is as oversupplied as our brains are overloaded in this, the information society.
full review (.pdf 49kb)

review

Reading for Writers
Victorian Writer, December 2009
‘A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.’ – Franz Kafka
Plenty of books will tell you how to read. And there are plenty of book clubs around. But this reading course was different – it dragged writers away from their keyboards and flung them into the world of readers.
full review (.pdf 49kb)

story

Many events of growing up blur into fast-forward. Some time later, you can see which ones signpost the way.
full story (.pdf 9.95kb)

travel feature

The coast north of Wollongong and south of Sydney is downright seductive. The geography of the little townships between the looming escarpment and the Pacific Ocean, the history of the artists and inventors and writers who are tangibly among the community of living ones. Published on www.travelmag.co.uk in 2006.

write-up

How does an author-editor relationship work? (Society of Editors (Vic.) Inc. Newsletter
read story (.pdf 53kb).