Following his graduation from the University of London with a BA
(English, French and History) and a Postgraduate Certificate in
Education, Michael Small taught at Carisbrooke Grammar School on the Isle of
Wight, then became a lector in English in Kalmar, Sweden. He studied French culture at the Institut de Tours and at the Sorbonne University. He came to Australia under the aegis of the Education Department of Victoria and taught at Foster and Brunswick high schools. In 1974 he joined the staff at Carey Grammar School, where he remained until 2007.
He is widely read in English and French literature. In addition, he has
a broad experience of European culture, having studied Latin, French
and Spanish at school and Italian when he was teaching migrants in
Victoria.
After gaining his BEd from La Trobe University (Film History, Film
Theory and Creative Education), he attended the University of Windsor,
Ontario to read for an MA (Creative Writing and Literature).
Small began writing his first story, 'Between Two Stools', shortly after his arrival in Australia. It was one of the winners of The Sun-News Pictorial Short Story Festival, 1973. The following year another story, 'Alice Safari' was also published in this competition. His short stories and poetry are freely available on the web, including his series of 50 poems tracing the convict era from 1720 in London to 1860 in Williamstown, Victoria. In addition to his creative writing, Small has published a histories of Carey Grammar School and the Footscray Football Club - Urangeline: Voices of Carey, 1923-1997 ( Playwright Publishing, 1997) and Unleashed: A History of Footscray Football Club (with John Lack, Chris
McConville and Damien Wright), Aus Sport Enterprises, 1996) - and co-authored, with Brian Keyte, Films: A Resource Book for Studying Film as Text ( Longman Cheshire, 1994).
