Sharyn Munro lived for decades in a solar-powered mudbrick cabin on her remote mountain wildlife refuge in the NSW Upper Hunter Valley, the heart of her first two books, The Woman on the Mountain (Exisle 2007) and Mountain Tails (Exisle 2009).
Mother of two, grandmother of five, concern for their future drives Sharyn to use her very personal nonfiction style to reach beyond the converted. In The Woman on the Mountain, sustainability and global warming concerns mix with memoir, nature writing, and survival adventures with chainsaws or snakes. Threatened species is the theme underlying Mountain Tails, a self-illustrated collection of short pieces for animal lovers.
Her 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.
In late 2014 she moved to a different mountain, closer to family, and with new wildlife to be discovered and chronicled in her blog. After her house was flooded in 2021, she moved to the mid north coast, where once again, she is discovering different Nature and sharing it on her blog.
A few health scares have made her determined to reclaim her path in fiction writing, especially her much loved short stories, and the Peeping through my fingers collection is the first result. As she nears her 75th year, she aims to use her way with words for both storytelling and activism. Our world needs both – to understand life and to save it.
Listen to this illuminating 2016 podcast interview by Natasha Milne with Sharyn about her life, her books and her activism:
Hi Sharyn, I listened to your interview on ABC612 Brisbane yesterday and I was very impressed with the way you have brought to light the real problems associated with this coal mining boom. I found it very inspirational and have today bought your book. I thank you for having the courage to speak out when many don’t want to know. I get quite annoyed at the Coal Seam Gas advertisements on television stating only the facts they want us to hear that appear to be so far from the truth. It’s heartbreaking to think that this destruction is going on and the government doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge the problem or do anything about it. Thank you again and I look forward to reading your book and I hope many more read it… we need more people like you!
Thanks Jill, and you’re right: getting started is the key! Just jot stuff down, don’t try to format it at first.
Hello,Sharyn I just finished your lovely book,it sounds so nice up where you live with the birds and wildlife.
I have a desire to write something about my life but getting started is the tricky part. Anyway loved your writing and hope to find your other works at the library soon.
regards,
Jill
Thanks Alec, and please send me details when your book is ready to release. We need every bit of truth to be revealed!
Hi Sharyn,
Thank you for taking the time to investigate and expose the widespread problems associated with coal and coal seam gas. Congratulations on your commitment to social justice! From personal experience I know that many of those innocent victims that you have so aptly portrayed will be ill equipped to make their own effective representations.
Your book was well researched and I commend you for being able to get your head around things like ILFN that I had not heard of before.
Later this year I will be releasing an ebook from a personal website. The title says it all. “Political Capture by Mining in Qld – The Case for a Royal Commission.” The final draft is already completed but as you would know there is much to do even after that.
Presently we await a response from Campbell Newman and the LNP on the EEMAG issues but it is hard to envisiage that they will undertake the sort of reform that must occur if our society is going to be sustainably managed.
So keep up the good work and I hope you book is the commercial success that it deserves to be.
Alec Lucke
Research & Communication Officer for
East End Mine Action Group Inc.
Wow, thank you for such encouraging comments Esta; it certainly felt like an epic task and all I could do was keep going and hope it would do some good– if I survived to finish it! Responses like yours give me hope it will help to bring about change.
Wow, thank you for such encouraging comments Esta; it certainly felt like an epic task and all I could do was keep going and hope it would do some good– if I survived to finish it! Responses like yours may me hope it will help to bring about change.
Hi Sharyn
Today I finished ‘Rich Land, Wasteland’, which I bought after catching some of your interview with Phillip Adams. Already concerned about the obscene rush to exploit CSG, I found your book extraordinarily powerful and evocative, bringing to life the anguish and courage of people beseiged, displaced and abandoned by their governments. I ‘knew’ it was big, but your book left me reeling from the shock of grasping how widespread and unchecked this pernicious coal and CSG scourge is. Words fail me (an unusual occurrence) when I try to find an adequate way to express my dismay for the environment, the water and the air. Forget ‘Gaslands’ – it’s powerful, but it’s about somewhere else, so we Aussies are off the hook. What we need is for SBS or the ABC to do the documentary version of your book to take the stark realities into Australia’s lounge rooms. We can’t just stand by and let this destruction go on. My warmest congratulations – you’ve produced a work of epic proportions and enormous value.
Regards
Esta Knudsen
Thanks Drew, but Tuesday’s event isn’t a launch, just one of the many talks I’ll be giving up and down the country over the coming months – after all, that’s what the book was meant for. All the best harrassing Arrow!
Hi Sharyn,
I must apologise for not being able to make your book launch at Avid Reader next Tuesday. I shall be out west harassing Arrow. Hope it goes well and congratulations on the book and the excellent interviews with Phillip Adams and Alan Jones.
Drew
Hi Stavroula,
So glad the book is doing the job I intended! Yes am coming to VIC in June and hopefully to Bacchus March as well as talks elsewhere. I’ll email you directly re your particular threat and area.
Hi Sharyn,
My husband and I are just now reading your latest book (we cannot put it down) and we wanted to know if you were coming to Southern Victoria, namely Gippsland at some stage this year. Some of us in our community are banding together to object to a potential coal seam gas exploration licence proposed for our beautiful environment. The Shire we live in (Bass Coast Shire) is actually the first one in Victoria to formally object to this mining threat that is consuming the northern part of Australia.
Thanks for bringing real people’s lives to your reader’s attention because it is helping all of us understand the human and social impact that our politicians conveniantly ignore.
Stavroula O’Reilly
Thanks Robin; I appreciate your comments especially because as you say, you’ve been through it! I don’t have TV at present but will try to catch that online. And giving that overview of the war when most people are stuck in their own battles was a major aim, so I’m glad it worked.
That’s a tragedy re your farm and your creek ; I am so sorry.
best wishes
Sharyn
Hello Sharyn,
I received your book on Friday and have just finished reading it, I couldn’t put it down. Many of the stories brought tears to my eyes, knowing exactly what they are, or were up against. I have asked the school that I teach at to order a copy in for the library, I would just love to start educating some of our senior students about mining in Australia. I had no idea when we met that your journey had taken you so far.
The mining went through half of my place a few weeks ago, the other half of the property will be undermined this year. They have destroyed my creek, the sandstone creek bed is cracked by upsidence and the creek which once flowed with pristine clear water to the Nepean, now flows blood red with mining oxides and mining detergents, which I have video of. Also the top farm has had bad damage, even though the longwall did not go under that property yet. The damage resulting from the longwall that went under my house.
Did you see me on the ABC news last Saturday night, serving it up too the minister ? I was so angry over his propaganda.
Again Sharyn thank you for the book and the opportunity to share my story. Well done, I think many people who are going through the same will get some further perspectives on the mining issue through reading it. I thought I knew most about mining, but I have to say that I took a lot of learning away from your book.
Hugzzzs to you
Robin
Hi Liz, no launches but am aiming to be in VIC in June for talks. Details still TBA.
Cheers
Sharyn
Hi Sharyn, are you coming to Victoria to do a book launch? I live in Bacchus Marsh and we are desperately trying to stop a potential open cut coal mine. Bacchus Marsh is a food bowl area in Victoria. Looking forward to reading your book. Thanks Liz
Hello Dennis,
Thanks for those comments, given your own ‘clarity of thought’, and thanks for getting in touch. I’ll email you!
P.S Nine grandchildren! I am green with envy, we have had one granddog for five years and look like getting our first grandchild in about three weeks time.Lucky you.
Dennis
Hi Sharyn, I caught your interview with Philip Adams on monday night.I am in awe of your clarity of thought, grasp of the subject and ability to express it articularly, in simple straightfoward prose.Awsome performance! Sorry to be out of contact for so long, my computer crashed and I lost all my data,including email addresses, phone numbers etc.
Big lesson in backing up your data (which I have since learned how to do) Regards, Dennis
Hi John,
Book in shops tomorrow, or you can order online from Exisle
( click on RLWL book cover on my home page).
My family moved to near Kyogle (after I’d grown up) so I was up that way a lot, and I have family near Ballina, so the north coast hinterland is familiar to me. And it certainly needs protection with the huge gas reserves under it.
Hi GRuth,
Thanks for visiting and letting me know you saw it. The chapter in the book on CSG etc is the biggest and is called ‘Methane on the march’ – as it sure is.
My interest is twofold, my mother is about 4km from a planned coal seam gas power station in Casino NSW (my home town – although I have lived in Sydney for almost 30 years) and (secondly) my horror at what could become of the Far North Coast of NSW with CSG (let alone the rest of the country)
Hi Sharyn; i just saw you on The Drum and will read up more now ! Was talking to friends on fb about the anti-csg rally when i realised what was being talked about : also now aware of the Lake District fight against having a nuclear dump installed. Totally agree with you that the problem lies in that we dont know enough about it …. after all, they thought radium was the new cure for skin diseases. So glad i didnt turn over and HI !
Looking forward to reading the new book, Richland, Wasteland
Hoping that it’s in the bookshops very soon
Good interview on the Drum tonight
regards
John Macleay
Well thank you for reading it Carol and with such understanding. And thank you for the work you are doing. I hope to get back to Tassie for a better look around when the post-coal book work dies down a little.
I was just in the NW of Tassie doing carbon accounting in the Tarkine area with the Tas Wilderness Society. Mining leases are looming even if we get a forest protection outcome. People science here is really hoping to make a coherent argument for cessation of logging high conservation forests. Your book strikes many echoes for me. I believe we will make a difference for our grandchildren. Thank you for your sure and evocative stories that bring so much of what is now so important into a place that city people can absorb without having to live it.
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for visiting and for the info. Will check out your site when I get a sec. As for helping, best join the Mid Western Community Action group, as the local umbrella group
Cheers
Sharyn
Hi Sharyn
Here’s a link to my Mudgee mining page – it also advertises the upcoming People’s Mining Conference at Mudgee, a list of local interest groups, a map (right down the bottom, showing mine locations) and has links to a lovely feature on The Drip & (nearby Hands on the Rock) at Ulan.
I get over 1000 visitors per month on the mining page.
Thought you might like to check it out
http://www.mudgeebusiness.com/mining-services.html
http://www.mudgeebusiness.com/the-drip—ulan.html
Let me know if there’s anything I can do !
Regards
Amanda Pahl
Hi Julianne,
Thank you for such enthusiasm for my first book. I think I did return to Hornsby for ‘Mountain Tails’ after it came out in 2009. Am nearly finished another book, but it’s quite different from these two. I do want to write a sequel to ‘Woman on the Mountain’ though, as so much has happened since. And be assured, I will remain just as honest!
All the best
Sharyn
Hello sharyn. I am eagerly awaiting another book from you. I had the pleasure of seeing you at the Hornsby Library a few years ago but am wondering why you haven’t popped up again. I Read your book “Woman on the Mountain” and am anxious to hear what has been going on in your life since then. When a woman writes a book about her life, it is an encouragement and inspiration to other women to know that ‘they’re not alone’, even in the loneliest and mundane times in their life. So, tell it how it is, Sharyn, warts and all. Just like you did in ‘Woman on the Mountain’. Regards, Julianne