editor educator historian novelist publisher author
Ethnicity:
Bruce Pascoe is of Bunurong, Yuin and Aboriginal Tasmanian (Palawa) heritage.
Bruce Pascoe was born into a poor working-class family on the 11th of October, 1947 in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. He is the son of Alf, a carpenter, and Gloria Pascoe. When Bruce was ten years old, his family moved to Mornington, Victoria, and later to the Melbourne suburb of Fawkner.
Bruce Pascoe attended a state school in Fawkner and then graduated from the University High School. After that, he entered the University of Melbourne, where he received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Education degrees.
Bruce Pascoe is best known as a writer of fiction and a publisher, the pursuits he had subsidized over many decades by working variously as a tourist guide, dairy farmer, fencing contractor, fisherman, bartender, school curriculum developer, and an Aboriginal-language researcher.
Pascoe has combined writing fiction and non-fiction with a career as a successful publisher and has been director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission. As a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative, Pascoe edited school readers on the history and language of the Wathaurong people, demonstrating his interest in Indigenous language retrieval and teaching. Moreover, he has spoken at conferences on Aboriginal culture and edited several anthologies and translations of Australian stories. Presently, Bruce is a professor of Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Technology in Sydney.
As the author, Bruce Pascoe wrote his first book, A Corner Full of Characters, Blackstone Press, in 1981. From that time, he wrote extensively. His work, titled Ribcage: All You Need Is $800,000 - Quickly and written under pseudonym Leopold Glass, came out in 1999. His most recent book, Salt: Selected Stories and Essays, was published in 2019. Besides, he published and edited Australian Short Stories magazine from 1982 to 1998 with his ex-wife, Lyn Harwood. The focus of this journal was to introduce new writers to the reading public in a quarterly literary. The magazine nearly expired in the idea stage, however, because major publishers took no interest in the project. However, Pascoe and Lorraine Phelan were convinced of the viability of the idea and made it possible by founding their own company, Pascoe Publishing, originally Pascoe Phelan. Soon after its inception, Australian Short Stories became known as the best vehicle for new, well-written short fiction in Australia. In late 1998, Pascoe and Phelan sold the magazine to a new editor, and it continued operating under new leadership.
Bruce Pascoe is a prolific author, editor, and publisher, as well as an outstanding educator. He is in constant demand at history conferences, literary festivals, indigenous gatherings, and more specialized events such as the Lake Bolac Eel Festival in western Victoria. His works have been published nationally and internationally, and have won several national literary competitions. He appeared in the SBS TV program, First Australians. His book, Dark Emu, has become a hit with over 100,000 copies sold and over two dozen reprints.
In 1993, Pascoe got the second prize, Sandhurst Trustees Novel Award for Ruby-eyed Coucal. Five years later, he eraned the second prize, at the Australian Bicentennial Novel competition. For his writing, Earth, he was shortlisted for the RAKA Award in 2001.
Pascoe won the Prime Minister's Literature Award for Young Adult fiction (Fog a Dox) in 2013, the Australian Literature Award 1999, Radio National Short Story 1998, and FAW Short Story 2010. His book, Dark Emu, won the New South Wales Premier's Book of the Year Award in 2016 and was performed by Bangarra Dance Theatre in 2018. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award by the Australia Council in 2018. At the same year, he was named Dreamtime Person of the Year for his contribution to Indigenous culture.
(This volume of Bruce Pascoe's best and most celebrated st...)
2019(An introduction to Australia's rich, indigenous culture, ...)
2008(A wide-ranging, personal, and powerful work that resonate...)
2007(Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration o...)
2014In his writings, Bruce Pascoe argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession.
Quotations:
"Sometimes a decade arrives when nations have the chance to turn away from bigotry and selfishness and turn to their countrymen and women and embrace them as loved members of the human family. But do we have the ticker for it?"
"Those preferring to rest an argument on relative morality should examine the religion and morality of Indigenous Australians and then compare it to those who murdered them in the 1800s and those who try to excuse or deny it today."
"If we are to attempt to understand Indigenous philosophy it has to begin with the profound obligation to land."
"The underestimation of Indigenous achievement was a deliberate tactic of British colonialism. Large structures of North American First Nations people were similarly ignored, or credited to earlier Europeans; and in South Africa, Cecil Rhodes made it illegal for anyone to mention the huge Shona structures found in what was once Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe."
"Colonial settlers ignored the Aboriginal method, and that contemporary Australians still suffer from the result. The Aboriginal methods of land management were not just practical, but aesthetically pleasing."
"The yam was a crucial plant in the economy of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australia, but few have examined this productive tuber. Surely we can no longer ignore such a valuable plant or the commercial opportunities it offers."
"Aboriginals engaged in seed propagation, irrigation, harvest, storage, and the trade of seed across the region."
"Any country will have naysayers among its citizenry, be it regarding climate change, birth control, taxation, gun control, or speed limits, however, if the general population persists in hiding from obvious facts of history, we are destined to repeat the selective opinions of the colonists."
Bruce Pascoe is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative, Apollo Bay Footy and Cricket Clubs, Australian Society of Authors, and a board member of the Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, as well as of the First Languages Australia.
Pascoe is known for his careful, humble manner of speaking and gruff bush charm. Besides, he has a natural charisma and a mischievous wit.
Bruce Pascoe was married to Lyn Harwood but they divorced in 2017 after 35 years together. He has a daughter from a previous relationship. With Lyn, he has a son, Jack.
Gloria Una (Smith) Pascoe was born on the 19th of February in 1919 and died on the 19th of March in 2004. She was an Australian paralympic winner. She became totally blind at the age of 55. She participated in the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem and she won a gold medal in the Women's Singles B. Also, she was the first in the Victorian State Titles held at Footscray in 1981. Gloria got a silver medal at the Championships. At the 1983 FESPIC Games, she won two gold medals.
Jack is a land management worker in Cape Otway.
Lyn Harwood is an Australian publisher, editor, and author. In collaboration with her ex-husband, she wrote The Babe Is Wise: Contemporary Stories by Australian Women, Australian Short Stories, and Cape Otway: Coast of Secrets.
