Billy Marshall Stoneking
Born in Orlando, Florida, the only son of two wandering West Virginians, he left the States in 1972 because too many bumper stickers said, "America: Love It Or Leave It". He has written in various forms, including poetry, plays, fiction, screenplays, historical non-fiction, and criticism. His published work includes the modern-day classic, Singing the Snake (Harper/Collins, 1990); and the equally good though less-classic, Lasseter : In Quest of Gold (Hodder & Stoughton, 1989). Taking America Out of the Boy, an irreverent auto-fictography, was published by Hodder Spectrum in 1993.
His first full-length play, Sixteen Words For Water (published by Harper/Collins in 1991) has enjoyed several successful productions, mostly recently Washington (2001). It has also had seasons in Dublin, London, the Berkshires (Massachusetts), San Diego (California), Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Hobart, Dunedin (NZ). In the late 1980s, Billy was series writer on Paramount Television's Mission:Impossible, and was creator/writer of the award-winning ABC-TV drama series, Stringer.
Much of his work has been influenced, and continues to be influenced by his long association with tribal Aboriginal people. From 1978 to 1983, he lived and worked at Papunya Aboriginal Settlement (275 kms west of Alice Springs, N.T.) where he collected and published stories and other materials in the local dialect [Pintupi/Luritja] for use in the Papunya outstations’ bi-lingual reading programme.
Poems:
&
fast link to soup poets:
Kieran Carroll/Chris
Grierson/Cassie Lewis/Peter
Murphy/Adrian
Rawlins/
Brendan Ryan/John West/Lauren
Williams