John Stokes is an Australian short-story writer and poet who has travelled widely in Europe and Australia as a surveyor, a town and environmental planner, and an adviser on Landcare, Rivercare, salinity and sustainable agriculture. His work has been widely anthologised in Australia and North America. He reads on radio and at various festivals. He won the Woorilla Poetry Prize in 1996 and has been runner-up in various regional prizes. John says that his present passion is Australian landscape as backdrop, and as an emotion for human violence or awe. He is trying to be brave and report back from the country beyond love. He says his favourite poetic influencers are R. D. Fitzgerald, Francis Webb, Seamus Heaney and Bruce Dawe and his favourite prose writer is David Malouf. (Adapted from the author's biography in Thylazine #2 )
