Cirrus@Austlit

'Ian McFarlane considers poetry to be a conversation with the imagination of anyone prepared to listen. His verse is both free and rhythmic, spanning its own inclusive path. Ian is an award-winning writer of fiction, essays and book reviews. Despite the crippling handicap of anxiety and depression, he has used words and ideas in defence of social justice, the environment and psychological well-being for many years. He now lives in a Canberra retirement village with his wife, Mary.' (Publication summary) 

'Murunna Point Revisited is a revised and expanded version of Evening at Murunna Point, first published in 2001, and seeks to take its essays, stories and poems into the digital age with renewed concerns for issues of social justice, literature and love, seen from a critical perspective honed over many years by a largely invisible handicap. Clinical depression and anxiety disorder can shackle the sufferer into virtual paralysis, as if being sent into exile without leaving home. However, such a uniquely immobilising experience can also allow a sense of accelerated awareness - a key aspect of any creative endeavour - and these essays, stories and poems attempt to validate this ironic truth.' (Publication summary)

'Ian McFarlane reconciles a haunting nostalgia for the natural beauty of his English childhood on the Isle of Wight with an awakening adolescent and adult love for Australia; from arrival in Perth in the mid-1950s to the far south coast of NSW, where he now lives. This 5000 word chapbook essay fondly remembers a pre-digital past in a chaotically cyberspace present to suggest that our future is linked to where we began, how we survived and ultimately why we even bothered.' (Publication summary)

'A passionate defence of the ABC from an award-winning essayist.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The history of Aborigines in Van Diemen’s Land is long. The first Tasmanians lived in isolation for as many as 300 generations after the flooding of Bass Strait. Their struggle against almost insurmountable odds is one worthy of respect and admiration, not to mention serious attention. This broad-ranging book is a comprehensive and critical account of that epic survival up to the present day.'

'Starting from antiquity, the book examines the devastating arrival of Europeans and subsequent colonisation, warfare and exile. It emphasises the regionalism and separateness, a consistent feature of Aboriginal life since time immemorial that has led to the distinct identities we see in the present, including the unique place of the islanders of Bass Strait.'

'Carefully researched, using the findings of archaeologists and extensive documentary evidence, some only recently uncovered, this important book fills a long-time gap in Tasmanian history. ' (Source: Publishers' website)