Award winning Whitsundays author and academic, Lindsay Simpson, joins line up
The Whitsundays Writers Festival is delighted to announce award winning Whitsundays author and investigative journalist Dr Lindsay Simpson as a new addition to the speaker line-up.
Lindsay is the author and co-author of eleven books including the bestselling Brothers in Arms, co-authored with Sandra Harvey, the subject of the Netflix television mini-series Bikie Wars.
Her historical fiction novel The Curer of Souls was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick prize in 2007, the same year she won, with Sandra, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Crime Writers Association.
Her 2014 book Where is Daniel? written with parents Bruce and Denise Morcombe, investigated the disappearance of their son Daniel and the subsequent police investigation. Her latest book, Following its Dirty Footsteps: Adani is a memoir on climate change which won a Queensland Premier Literary Award in 2019.
Festival President Karen Jacobsen expresses her excitement. “We are thrilled to have Lindsay join this year’s program. Her body of work is profound. Her meticulous research and passionate telling of important stories often present the reader with uncomfortable and problematic aspects of Queensland and Australian stories that need to be told.”
Lindsay was also an investigative journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald from 1983-95 and spent 13 years as an academic as the inaugural Head of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Tasmania and founded the Bachelor of Multimedia Journalism degree at James Cook University in 2010.
She now writes full time and lives in the Whitsundays with her husband Grant. They have their own tourism business running two sailing boats, Providence V and MiLady.
“We look forward to Lindsay’s significant contribution to the Festival, sharing insights on responsible and respectful truth telling,’ said Karen.
Lindsay joins authors Shankari Chandran, Garry Disher, Sally Hepworth, Kirsty Manning, Christos Tsiolkas, Anne Buist, Graeme Simsion, Karina Kilmore, Melissa Ashley, Jack Roney, Joy Damousi, and Nick Earls for this year’s program.