Catchfire Press Founders, Departed

Norman Talbot, 1936-2004

Born and educated in England, gaining his BA from Durham and his Ph.D. from Leeds, Norman came to a university lectureship in English at the University of Newcastle in 1963, with his wife and first child. His later children were born in Newcastle.

Apart from scholarly publications, Norman is the author of eleven books of poetry (the first in 1968, and the first five published by the lamented South Head Press) and editor of nineteen. He has taught over fifty creative writing courses and performed before live audiences and on radio in several countries. He has been published in most Australian and many overseas periodicals, and is represented in many anthologies. His Four Zoas of Australia, Paper Bark Press 1992, was short-listed for the National Book Awards and the Victorian Premier's Award. Since his early retirement (1993, at professorial rank) from the University of Newcastle to become a full-time writer and literary consultant, he has published two new verse collections, and completed his first two prose fantasies, as well as several stories. His beautiful collaboration with the artist John Montefiore, The Book of Changes, was published in December 1999.

In 1964 Norman and a group of friends founded Nimrod Publications, which he took over in 1965. This small firm published over four hundred writers from the Hunter Valley, in nearly forty books. His factual Babel Handbooks, including guides to spelling and to poetic terms, has also proved a valuable resource for writers. Since his retirement he has expanded his Nimrod Literary Consultancy, whose five consultants assess and edit many kinds of writing. A foundation member of Catchfire Press, he was publications editor for five of its first six titles, and was its vice-president until forced to take over the presidency in April 2002. The most recent of his many awards was the Broadway Poetry Prize at the 2002 Australian Poetry Festival.

He died suddenly in January, 2004.