WRITER & copyWRITER
With a background in film and art journalism, I write books, screenplays, poetry, reviews and essays, plus more commercial commissions such as film press books, production notes, synopses, director's statements and website copy. As writer and filmmaker I have appeared as interviewer and guest In Conversation at book and film festivals in Australasia and internationally.
With such an eclectic range, my approach is customised to material and client needs. As an experienced writer and editor, I deliver concise, vivid, and well-researched copy to deadline
Previous commissions and clients include Newsroom, Sydney Review of Books, Te Herenga Waka Press, Ultimo Press, Twentieth Century Fox, Arena Films, Bazmark, Binnaburra Films, Bloomsbury, Dendy Films, Hibiscus Films, Big Shell Films, Jan Chapman Productions, and See-Saw Films. Notable commissions have been a special edition Cannes press book for Jane Campion's Palme D'Or & Academy Award-winning, The Piano, and a press book and a coffee table book for Baz Luhrmann's Academy Award-winner, Moulin Rouge.
Please contact me to discuss commissions and copy requirements.
PERSONAL ESSAYS, BOOK REVIEWS
Personal essay, A Good and Gentle Man: An elegy by Miro Bilbrough to her father, author Norman Bilbrough (1941-2022), Reading Room, 9 April 2024
Personal essay, I Don’t Have Time if You Are in a Hurry, Reading Room, 10 June 2023
Personal essay on technology, Five Ways, Sydney Review of Books, June 4, 2021
Personal essay, All My Parents Exes Are Getting in Touch, Reading Room, April 7, 2021
Personal essay, My Childhood Books by Miro Bilbrough, The Sapling, September 6, 2020
Book review of Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, Reading Room, February 11, 2023
IN CONVERSATION at ARTS FESTIVALS
Once Were Hippies interviewed by Steve Braunias, Pukapuka Talks, Nelson Arts Festival 2021
Inside the confession Machine, panel, Addi Rd Festival 2022
Domesticity Under Scrutiny, panel, Brisbane Writers Festival 2022
Prelude: Katherine Mansfield panel, BWF 2022
Love and Virtue with Diana Reid, interviewer, BWF 2022
The Mirror Book with Charlotte Grimshaw, interviewer, Pukapuka Books 2021
Autumn Salon, panel with Marilyn Robinson, Douglas Stuart and Paula Morris, Auckland WF 2021
BOOKS
‘Five Ways’ in Open Secrets, anthology, Sydney Review of Books, Sydney 2022
In the Time of the Manaroans, memoir, Te Herenga Waka Press 2020, Ultimo Press 2021
Moulin Rouge, coffee table book, Allen & Unwin, Sydney 2001
‘Jane Campion’ in Jane Campion Interviews, ed. Virginia Wright Wexman, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 1999
‘Making The Piano’ in The Piano (screenplay) by Jane Campion, Bloomsbury, London 1993
’Different complexions: an interview with Jane Campion’, Film in Aotearoa New Zealand, eds. Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa, Victoria University Press, Wellington 1992
FEATURE FILM PRESS BOOKS
The Piano (1993), Palme D’Or & Academy Award-winning drama, writer-director Jane Campion
Carcrash (1994), docu-drama, writer-director David Caesar, co-writer
Miro Bilbrough
Floating Life (1996), drama, writer-director Clara Law
The Boys (1997), crime drama, director Rowan Woods
Holy Smoke (2000), drama, writer-director Jane Campion
Moulin Rouge (2001) Academy Award-winning musical, writer-director
Baz Luhrmann
Look Both Ways (2004) drama with animation, writer-director Sarah Watt
Candy (2005) drama, writer Luke Davies, director Neil Armfield
Like Minds (2005), thriller, writer-director Gregory Read
$9.99 (2008), animation, writer-director Tatia Rosenthal
Testimonial
‘This is a short song of praise to introduce Miro Bilbrough, who I first met when she conducted a long interview with me for book publication. It was simply the best, most down to earth, irreverent and revealing of any I could remember reading. Sometime after this I asked her to write the production notes for The Piano. I chose her in particular because I knew her to be a writer and a poet, with a wide-ranging and very genuine love of cinema, rather than simply a film journalist. The qualities of her imagination—surprising and penetrating—and an abundance of initiative make her a lively and extremely promising creative entity.’
- Jane Campion, 20 June 1994
