Miscellany | Writers | Australia | Sharyn Munro

Sharyn Munro's short stories have won many prizes, including The Alan Marshall Award; she wrote regularly for The Owner Builder Magazine, and her essays have been published in the Griffith Review and Famous Reporter. The very different Rich Land, Wasteland — how coal is killing Australia (Pan Macmillan/Exisle 2012) arose from her empathy with the people and places of the nearby Hunter Valley being devastated from runaway opencut coalmining. The aim of this self-designated ‘commonsense activist’ was to shock Australians into action, with the truth about coal and CSG. People have compared her book to Silent Spring in its passion, its exposure of issues and the possibility it may lead to a change in the way we treat our world.