When Malcolm Steele was finishing Year 12 at Stanthorpe State High School, he was applying to study Journalism. Back then, students were given the opportunity to change their preferences about tertiary entrance. At some point, Malcolm became interested in Special Education teaching, as it was known. He changed his preference. Was accepted into teaching at Mt. Gravatt C.A.E. Two weeks into that, Malcolm was accepted into the Bachelor of Arts- Journalism at U.N.E., Armidale. He had to make a choice. How his life would have been different if he had dropped out of teaching and travelled to Armidale.
But he didn’t give up entirely on the idea of Journalism. In 1984, he enrolled in the Journalism course at the Darling Downs Institute of Education (DDIAE) in Toowoomba, to study externally. That lasted a year. My enjoyment of the course was destroyed by having to do a compulsory Economics subject. Other distractions had also entered my life.
Along the way, though, Malcolm never really gave up the idea of writing. And he has always been a voracious reader, something you need to be if you want to write.
When Malcolm and his family moved to Brisbane in 1992, as a Drama teacher he became interested in writing for the Theatre. He participated in workshops with Metro Arts, Playlab, La Boite and Queensland Theatre. When he finally realised he needed to upgrade his teaching qualification by completing a Bachelor of Education, Malcolm completed a couple of writing and Dramaturgy subjects. This is when Malcolm started to start writing seriously. It also helped when he was told my professionals in their fields, that he could write.
Malcolm became involved in the emergeproject (yes, all one word). During this time, he wrote short works for Valley People and 10 x 10. He had a full length work presented at the Judith Wright Centre. Malcolm also participated in the Short and Sweet Festivals on a couple of occasions. In his role as Senior Teacher of Drama, he began creating works for his students. Submissions were also made to Screen Queensland for various programs.
Finally giving up teaching, Malcolm wrote his first book. ‘GRANITE BELT’, as it was then called started life in a Year of the Novel course with the Australian Writers’ Centre. You can read more about this and subsequent pieces of fiction when you have a look at the MY WRITING page of the website. In 2018, Malcolm was accepted into the Incubator program at Playlab. This gave him the opportunity to create a new Australian play, ‘MYTHS ABOUT BUTTERFLIES’. I may be posting excerpts of this later on the site.
In 2021, Malcolm participated in the Faber/Allen and Unwin Writing Academy. The first time this was offered in Brisbane, having run in Sydney and Melbourne for a few years.
Malcolm, along with eight other writers, had the chance to work with, initially, Kristina Olsson who was then joined by Emily Maguire. Nine new Australian pieces of fiction were begun. Extracts from these will be published in an Anthology, released in Australia and the United Kingdom in February.
If you were to ask Malcolm about his experience of writing, his first response might well be one of frustration. This not only comes from being rejected almost sixty times (yes, he knows about J.K. Rowling and the man who wrote The Hermit, two hundred rejections!) but the lack of any type of feedback or commentary. Malcolm knows this is part of the publishing industry, knew this when he started out. It happened when he wrote his first book, receiving the comment, ‘I quite like the story but I think you use too many words.’ Or the agent who said, ‘It just didn’t grab me.’ Both acceptable because reading is so subjective. Finally, Malcolm had a professional assessment done of Stone Fruit. It was this, that encouraged him to keep on going.
Lastly, Malcolm has decided to launch the website and join Instagram as MalcolmSteeleWriter.com because agents and editors encourage writers to have a social media presence. They want to know a writer has an audience, a ready made audience. Hence, Malcolm sharing some of his work for you to read and comment on.
A huge thank you to my nephews, Troy and Grant, for creating the website. Thanks and love to Lynney, Alexandra, James and Toby and Ella, our family dog, for your ongoing love, support and belief in me and my work. Bring on the bestsellers!
