Cirrus@Austlit

Award-winning songwriter, Carmelo, commonly known as Charlie, migrated from Sicily with his parents in the mid 1950s and grew up in New Farm, Brisbane, Queensland.

Towards the end of his forty-year corporate career in the finance and estate-planning industries, Charlie decided to pursue his passion for writing as a side interest. He writes in a number of genres.

His first short story, 'Love finds Sicilian Joe', about a city boy with an Elvis hairdo who meets a dairy farmer’s daughter outside a country barber shop, was aired in a 'talent search' promotion on the Ian Maurice 4BC evening radio show in 2005.

Charlie then co-authored the acclaimed true crime story, The Second Father, which was published by UQP in 2009. More recently, he has released the first of his children’s adventure stories for four- to nine-year-olds.

In 2009, Charlie met an extraordinarily talented country music singer songwriter, Jim Harding. They became good mates and began to pen some great songs together about their yesteryears. Charlie has written and co-written sixteen songs recorded by Jim and other artists.

From the first time he smelled a gum leaf and the dust, Charlie was captivated by the Australian bush and continued to write country music after Jim passed away.  His numerous awards include 1^st place in the Australian Songwriters Association Lyrics awards with 'Memoirs of Vietnam, a 2017 ASA nomination for the prestigious Rudy Brandsma award, a semi-finalist place in the 2018 Tamworth Songwriters Association TSA/APRA New Songwriters Award and more.

He also entertains and gives talks to seniors’ and other groups.

(Source: supplemented by author.)

For work not individually indexed on AustLit (including the songs), see notes.