David Mulligan has been writing since he was eight years old when his essay, 'Collecting Coins' was, printed in his school magazine.

His poetry is published in Australia, the United States and China and his short stories, published in magazines and anthologies, have won eleven awards. For a couple of years he wrote a regular Sunday column, 'Sunday Ramblings', for the Macquarie Newspaper Group of  NSW country papers and when time permits, he still writes feature articles for local and international magazines and newspapers.

His picture book The Moon's Gift (sales of over 10,000), was followed by a young adult factional novel, Angels of Kokoda, and is the first book written about Kokoda and the world at that time especially for young people.

The Hon Charlie Lyn MLC (Director of the Kokoda Trust), said that had it been written 60 years ago people would have understood why their husbands, fathers and brothers would never talk about their war along The Track.

Lauded by, Premier Steve Bracks of Victoria,  General Peter Cosgrove and Lt. General Peter Leahy (Chief of Army) and  described as a 'unique addition to young people's literature' by the then Premier of New South Wales Bob Carr, it has been singularly honoured  by His Excellency Michael Jeffery Governor-General of Australia who wrote the foreword in which he says "I highly recommend this book for not only young people, but anyone interested in Australia's rich military history."

Angels of Kokoda, now into it's third printing, is also enjoying success as a four CD set put out by Louis Braille Audio Books (wonderful for the sight impaired, bedridden and those taking long car journeys), and is the subject of option-negotiations for it to be made into a film.

Two more picture books - Big Red and Seeing Stars - are  waiting in the wings and his next young adult factional novel, Heroes of Tobruk, written for the same age group, will be published about this time necxt year.  Again it will be the only book written especially for young people about the only other predominantly Australian campaign in WWII, the Seige of Tobruk.

When not talking about Angels of Kokoda to schools, Rotary, Probus, National Seniors and RSL  and similar clubs, David writes full time and what with his five children  46, 45, 44, 40 and 38, six grandchildren 20, 18, 17, 16, 15 and 12 and a wife who swears she's only 39, demanding his attention, he says his days are just not long enough.

Read our interview with David Mulligan

Read Sarah Cook's review of Angels of Kokoda here.

Contact Webmistress (Cheryl Wright): write_cheryl @ optusnet.com.au (remove spaces)