Cedar Bay. Isolated remote tropical paradise. Coconut palms sway gently in the breeze that drifts in from the Coral Sea. Fringing reefs of the Great Barrier Reef lay just off shore. And in 1976, it was the location of the most bungle police operation in far north Queensland history.

My research into Cedar Bay began shortly after I finished my Daintree book. I soon discovered there was so much more to the Cedar Bay story than the police raid.

The remarkable story of Bill Evans (Cedar Bay Bill), the tin scratcher and hermit who lived alone at the bay for 40 years.

The incredible stories of the young people who settled there; their journey to the bay is worth the telling.

And the lives of the people who for ten years called Cedar Bay home, living on what they grew and caught, or shipped in on leaking old punts.

Cedar Bay: Australia’s Hippie Hideaway – progress highlights:

• Article in Griffith Review 65 Crimes and Punishment ‘ Paradise lost: the Cedar Bay raid’


• Mainstream media coverage with a piece appearing in QWeekend; and a radio appearance on ABC, interviewed by Emma Griffiths with Queensland wide coverage on Saturday morning (10/8/19);


• KSP Writers’ Centre Fellowship two week residency supported with a Regional Arts Fund Quick Response grant, 2019;


• Awarded a Griffith Review Queensland Writing Fellowship, 2018;


• Received a RADF grant to conduct interviews in far north Queensland, 2018;


• Awarded a Griffith Review Varuna Writers Residency, taken in August 2018;


• Shortlisted for the prestigious John Oxley Library Fellowship, 2018