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Adam in the Outback

Why "Blinding Sunlight"?

"It's a phrase that to a degree captures what my writing is about (I believe). To me it encapsulates something essentially "Australian"; the white hot landscapes, the squint-bright sun, the thrill-tint blue of the sky. And behind all "blinding sunlight" there lies a shadow ... and I'm just as interested in the shadow as I am the original light. Equal parts, opposite parts.  (And "Blinding Sunlight" is also the title of my first novel, the manuscript of which was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Literary Award.)" 

- Adam

Bit of a bio

Adam is a Sydney writer. He has published three books of poetry and the manuscript of his first novel, Blinding Sunlight, was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Award. His writing (poetry, fiction and short stories) has been published in various magazines and periodicals around Australia, and he has also done a great deal of spoken word / performance poetry gigs around the country, reading at events such as the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the National Young Writers' Festival, plus many gigs with his former band Modern Giant and current one The Aerial Maps.

Adam's first poetry book, titled Barefeet And Bindi-Eyes (SaltAsh Press), was published in late 1997, with a second edition published in 1998 and a third in 1999. This book was praised by Australian poetry luminary Les Murray as "lively and interesting". Barefeet And Bindi-Eyes contains 41 poems, all of which speak of life and the world from an unashamedly Australian point of view and attempt to give due validity to issues and experiences that are uniquely "local".

His second book Seasonally Affected (released mid-2000) continued along a similar line, but also saw Adam looking more internally for inspiration, the book being written in a period immediately following his father’s death.

His third book, Bondi, was published in January 2006.

Adam's poetry is accessible, funny and affecting, going a long way to debunking the common perception that poetry has to be so complicated and so far up it’s own backside to be considered "real". He talks of aloe vera plants on the back step, of the paling fence of the Australian backyard, about relationships falling apart as a hot dry westerly wind scorches the city, about surfing remote headlands and about driving through the night listening to Midnight Oil.

"We celebrate and romanticise the stories of other countries without question, but I believe that our Australian lives and stories aren’t given enough credit or seen as valid," Adam says.

"I feel that there is a strong need to redress this, to celebrate Port Macquarie or Bondi or Protester Falls as just as important as London, or a street in LA or New York. Because if we don’t tell these stories, who will?"

Adam's influences include Robert Drewe, Michael Thomas (songwriter from Weddings Parties Anything), Midnight Oil, The Triffids, Tim Winton, The Go-Betweens, Billy Bragg, The Clash, Peter Carey, Paul Theroux, Milan Kundera, Jack Kerouac and the Australian Labor Party. And a stack of other things ... including some of the photos on the gallery page.

Dubbed by Sydney radio personality Mike Carlton as "the Bard of Bondi" following the release of Seasonally Affected, Adam is currently working on his second novel (and The Aerial Maps).