John Morrison: Writer at Work

John Morrison arrived in Australia from England in 1923 at the age of eighteen with a sense of adventure, sound training as a gardener and a naturalist's skills in observation. He also had a passion for writing and reading. His enthusiasm for writing had yielded little apart from the satisfaction of practising a craft; while snippets of nature notes had been published, his stories had accumulated enough rejection slips 'to plaster a room'. Books had influenced his decision to emigrate. Tales of far-off places, those by Conrad in particular, had gripped his imagination and contributed to his urge to leave Sunderland and see the world. He came eager for new experiences.