After moving to Tasmania, Sturges worked at the Risdon Zinc Works for fifteen years. He then lectured at the University of Tasmania and the Technical College, teaching engineering drawing. Sturges published poetry and about 70 short stories in journals and newspapers such as Saturday Evening Mercury and Chronicle (Toowoomba), and his works have appeared in anthologies in Australia, the UK, the USSR and the USA (often in Short Story International). He won a number of prizes for his short stories, and he dramatised children's books for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
