About me

My name is Ginny Lowndes and I come from Mitchell in south-western Queensland.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Outback (or Australia) as you go down the Warrego Highway towards Charleville, Mitchell is situated between Muckadilla, where the bore water was said to have healing powers on a shearer’s bad back, and Mungallala. My father Bob, a shearer, caught the last Cobb and Co coach out from there as a kid. He preferred droving to school, and spent years moving cattle and sheep around Australia.

I grew up on the Maranoa River and in Mitchell where the Ooline bottle trees remain from the remnants of a rainforest in times long ago. They are currently in flower. I hope they have recovered from being carved with my initials. I also hope the 300-year old land turtle I painted bright pink survived, and that the koalas and goannas I pinged with my shanghai have got over it. My father, his brother Henry, known as Uncle Chook, and their mates from under the Tree of Knowledge told me once koalas especially had exceptionally long memories, and they passed them down to the next generation. But then, they also told me that mulga snakes wouldn’t hurt a fly. I can confirm they ignore flies but they don’t like children very much.

My life and writing has been informed by Mitchell. In the television drama serial, Neighbours, Mitchell and my family became the Mitchell family — Charlene, Henry and Madge Mitchell — and other relatives filled in for the friends and neighbours portrayed on Channel 7 where I was almost the sole employee working on the show as the storyteller, story editor, writer and creator of most of the characters, and then again on Channel 10 in much the same role.

Mitchell again featured as the inspiration for my 2010 novel, Corrugated Roads, published by Montpelier Press.  It and they can be found at http://www.montpelierpress.com.au/

It is the first instalment of a künstlerroman, or the novels that tell the story of an artist’s life. My second book Corrugated Roads. Rollin’ Down the Road. 1960s – 1970s is available on Smashwords, and Amazon, as is the first book in the series.

My first story, The Maranoa Picture Theatre, was broadcast by the ABC in 1979. I applied to get into the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) but was rejected because I had “too many handicaps”, they being my two small daughters. After writer Bob Ellis interceded on my behalf, I was accepted into the School and graduated in 1980. After that I found work writing all the problems for the television show Beauty and the Beast  — you didn’t think they were from real people did you? until I moved to Melbourne to work for Dr Trish Edgar at The Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTVF) as a script and story editor.

After eighteen months, I moved back to Sydney and became the script and story editor for Neighbours where I used all the knowledge I’d acquired at the ACTVF in the show mixed with the stories from my life. This was followed by Sons and Daughters, Australia’s Most Wanted, A Country Practice, the Zirkos Kids and more. In the publishing world, I have written for The Nation Review, Billy Blue magazine, and Woman’s Day.  I gave my children a collective heart attack when I told them I had my photo taken for Playboy. It had published a short story. Other stories have been included in a number of collections. My textbooks about writing television and film are in various libraries. The original Charlene Mitchell script plus many others have been donated to the The John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland (Reference Code: 10147).

I undertook a Master of Arts at Griffith University in 2005. I was awarded Alumnus of the Year in November 2011 by Griffith University, School of Arts.  I am currently attempting a doctorate at the University of Western Sydney.

Note: Contemporary news about Mitchell can be found at Robin’s Outback blog.