Ross Honeywill

WASTED: the true story of Jim McNeil

rosshoneywill — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 01:08:01 +0000

Shortlisted as one of three finalists in the 2011 Ned Kelly awards for true crime writing (3 August 2011)

Sydney Morning Herald’s non-fiction BOOK OF THE WEEK (13 Nov 2010)

“An artfully constructed…well-researched biography that invites readers to turn the pages with alacrity” (Murray Waldren)

“A fine, nuanced narrative – this is a remarkable road trip movie of a book”(Bob Ellis )

“Honeywill is a great storyteller…this engaging narrative wil have you turning pages vigorously” (Corrie Perkin)

“It’s an important story to tell and Honeywill tells it so very well” (Mark Rubbo)

WASTED

is the true story of Jim McNeil – a man jailed for armed robbery who would become one of the most important Australian playwrights of the twentieth century.

Jim McNeil quit school at thirteen. At fourteen he was introduced to Melbourne’s underworld by his lover, the madam of a notorious brothel. Despite his love of reading and philosophy, McNeil relished his life among thugs and thieves, becoming one of Australia’s most feared criminals.

In 1967, having jumped bail and fled to New South Wales, the 32-year-old McNeil shot a policeman during an armed robbery. He was convicted and began a seventeen-year prison sentence, leaving behind his pregnant wife and five children.

In Parramatta maximum-security prison, surrounded by the worst criminals in Australia, McNeil joined a reform group known as the Resurgents, where he soon discovered his talent as a writer. Locked up for what seemed a lifetime, he also discovered prison sex, became involved in a prison break and outwitted Australia’s underworld legends.

When he wrote his first play, McNeil had never set foot in a theatre. Just four years later he was a celebrity, freed ten years early thanks to David Marr, Katharine Brisbane and a powerful group of Sydney’s elite, who declared him one of the country’s most important writers.

Within months of his release, McNeil had married actor and director Robyn Nevin, won the Australian Writers’ Guild award for the most outstanding script in any category and was commissioned to write the screenplay for My Brilliant Career. Charismatic, dangerous and charming, he was at the height of his powers.

But McNeil never wrote again. Pursued by Sydney society and lost in a world that lacked the strict regimen of prison life, he fell back into alcoholism and violence. He returned to the streets and died within a decade. His four plays stand as a testament to a remarkable talent sadly wasted.

This is a story of triumph and tragedy; a sometimes funny and always emotional exploration of human cruelty, frailty, strength and tenderness.

BUY WASTED ONLINE: Readings Books

Go to the WASTED site: WASTED

Lamarck’s Evolution

rosshoneywill — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:00:41 +0000

LAMARCK’S EVOLUTION: two centuries of genius and jealousy

Ross Honeywill – Pier 9, August 2008

With a narrative as lively as fiction, this is the true story of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Ted Steele who, with a passionate hunger for scientific truth, overthrow the rules set by two different civilizations in two different centuries.

Before Darwin, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck created the first theory of evolution, an idea so powerful it promised to become the great unifying force of science. But for two hundred years Lamarck’s grand idea polarized the scientific establishment and became a byword for discredited belief, until on the eve of his bicentenary, science finally caught up and proved him right.

This is the story of Lamarck’s own travails in the heat of the French Revolution and of Ted Steele, the Australian scientist who, almost two centuries later, would decode the evidence and put Lamarck back on the world stage.

It is the celebratory tale of mavericks, knaves and heroes, of brilliant men who said they could change the world, and did. This is a roller-coaster ride of intelligence, stubborn vision, belief and despair that begins with a new ending and ends with a new beginning.

www.lamarcksevolution.com

REVIEWS:

The Canberra Times says: “WRITING WELL AND LUCIDLY ON SCIENTIFIC MATTERS IS A RARE TALENT: HONEYWILL DOES IT BEAUTIFULLY IN THIS FASCINATING STORY” read the full review …The Canberra Times Review

The Age says: “SPELLBINDING READING…A STORY FULL OF ARCH ENEMIES, MACHIAVELLIAN CONSPIRACIES AND PASSIONATE DEBATE”

IT’S UNFORTUNATE THAT Darwin has received all the glory for his theory of evolution when 50 years earlier, Frenchman Jean Baptiste de Lamarck proposed ideas that were to prove seminal to future discourses on evolutionary biology.

The Lamarckian theory centred on the mechanism of inheritance, with the basic premise being that environment influences an organ’s development and characteristics acquired during a lifetime could be passed on to the next generation. It sounds like a sound enough theory but, as seen in Lamarck’s Evolution, both vociferous acclaim and acrimony were to dog the scientist during his life and for the two centuries thereafter.

In his erudite yet highly readable account, Ross Honeywill charts the work of one of the pioneers of modern science as well as the subsequent findings of his successors and detractors. It begins in 18th-century France with Lamarck working against a background of revolutionary fervour, and ends at the beginning of the 21st century, with the validation of his hitherto discredited work. One wouldn’t expect that the claims and repudiations of white-coated boffins would make for spellbinding reading but Lamarck’s travails are a story full of arch enemies, Machiavellian conspiracies and passionate debate.Thuy On,The Age Book Reviews

THE CHARACTERS LEAPED OUT OF EVERY PAGE……

It’s an immensely important subject…I loved the imagery, drama and the characters that leaped out of every page. I particularly loved the central theme that proposes that answers are all there to be listened to…the music ‘finding the composer’…beautiful. Lou Petho, International award winning film maker

A LUCID AND ENGROSSING BOOK…

Let me say how much I admire this book: Ross Honeywill’s account of the entire 200 year story is breathtaking—(when) I read it I was enthralled and enthused, as I almost never am by popular history of science writing.The material is well informed by history of science perspectives and a wise use of interviews with scientific and historical experts.

Ross Honeywill’s exceptional effort, and vision, in putting this book together, is a remarkable piece of history of science popularisation. I can see now just how good popular history of science writing can be.

I confess to greatly admiring this work marked by passion, energy, detail and amazing speed and address. This is a lucid and engrossing book. In particular Ross has nailed the Steele story…I am now convinced Ted Steele is even more potentially important, and historically interesting, than I thought before. Steele is certainly redeeming the tragic heroism of Lamarck, but I think there is a more complex and fascinating story here than that: Not only does this book provide valuable insights about the process of scientific discovery, but it also places Steele in an even more important light in the history of science. I can hardly wait for this book to land right in the middle of the ongoing scientific debate raging around Lamarck and Steele.

In this book Ross is the knowledgeable, humane, enthused man of letters interested in awakening the wider reading public to some big moves in the world of science, and doing it, as many earlier disseminators did, through the story of a particular hero: as Huxley to Darwin; and Playfair to Hutton; Gamow to Einstein, so, perhaps Honeywill to Steele. Dr John Schuster, Science Historian, University of NSW

A WONDERFULLY COMPELLING NARRATIVE…

Australian scientist Ted Steele chanced on nineteenth-century French scientist, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, on a long plane flight in 1978. Reading Arthur Koestler’s Janus, he was particularly struck by the chapter ‘Lamarck Revisited’.

In 1809, Lamarck had published Philosophie Zoologique, a work in which he anticipated Darwin’s theory of evolution. What struck Steele about Lamarck’s theory was that he posited that characteristics acquired by an organism during its lifetime could be genetically passed on to its progeny. At the time, Lamarck’s theories gained many enemies and he died 20 years later: penniless and largely unacknowledged. Fifty years after Philosophie Zoologique, Darwin published On the Origin of Species. While Darwin did acknowledge Lamarck’s contribution, he disagreed with his idea that acquired characteristics could be passed on to the next generation. The ascendancy of Darwinian theory meant that few scientists pursued Lamarck’s ideas with much vigour. (Although Austrian Walter Kammerer’s experiments with the midwife toad seemed to confirm Lamarck’s theories; in the Soviet Union, agronomist Trofim Lysenko used Lamarckian theory to improve crops.) It was Steele and his colleague Reg Gorzynski who advanced the research to prove Lamarck right. In 1979, Steele (a fiery and driven character) published his findings in Somatic Selection and Adaptive Evolution. Like Lamarck, Steele was challenged by the prevailing scientific community – ultimately, he was driven, or drove himself, out of the academy. However, 200 years after his work was first published, Lamarck’s theories are finding their place.

Ross Honeywill makes what already was a fascinating story into a wonderfully compelling narrative that puts all the pieces together. In doing so, he has done science a great service. Mark Rubbo, Readings e-news

Buy online – CLICK HERE

NEO Power

rosshoneywill — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:00:12 +0000

The changing face of society has been buried under a landslide of information that is often meaningless. Labels like ‘generation X’, ‘generation Y’, and ‘baby boomers’ don’t describe our desires or explain how and why we behave as complex human beings, let alone as workers, consumers, and homemakers.

To find a solution to this problem, Ross Honeywill and Verity Byth spent seven years surveying hundreds of thousands of respondents, and examined more than 2000 social and behavioural characteristics. They discovered no less than a revolutionary breed that is charting a new course and reinventing the world.

Known as the New Economic Order, or NEO, they are better educated, vote for economic leadership but insist on progressive social views, like sport but love the arts, dominate the Internet, believe food is a celebration of the day, earn more, spend more and demand more from just about everyone.

As workers, they need to be stimulated and challenged, in flexible workspaces where they deal with challenges, make meaningful relationships, and share ideas and experiences. As consumers, they love authenticity, change, technology, and luxury, and revel in a world of rich information and ‘whispered secrets’.

This landmark book reveals startling evidence of how 4 million Australians, 6 million Canadians, 12 million Britons and 59 million Americans are transforming the social and political landscape around us. It provides a new social compass that makes immediate sense of a confused world by using, for the first time, a bedrock of vast consumer research that identifies the fascinating and revolutionary changes occurring in society changes that will make a difference to every reader.

Buy NEO POWER Online – Click Here

Go to the NEO Power site – CLICK HERE