Richard Newsome

Dr Richard Newsome is a Lecturer in the School of Communication and Arts, Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, at the University of Queensland. He directs the Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing program and is affiliated with the Centre for Critical and Creative Writing. Newsome completed his PhD in Creative Writing at UQ in 2016, with the thesis 'Making the dead speak: writing dialogue in historical fiction'. He previously earned a Bachelor of Economics with First Class Honours from UQ in 1991, researching 'An Assessment of the incentives for developing country governments to continue servicing sovereign external debt' in his honours thesis. His academic journey reflects a shift from economics to creative writing, undertaken between 2013 and 2016 for the doctorate.

Newsome is an award-winning author of nine novels for middle-grade readers, translated and published internationally. His debut, The Billionaire’s Curse, won the inaugural Text Prize for Children’s and Young Adult literature in 2008 and the Esther Glen Medal in 2010. The Billionaire series includes The Crystal Code (2012), The House of Puzzles (2014), and The Curiosity Machine (2016), published by Text Publishing. In 2019, Affirm Press issued the Stella the Unstoppable series: Stella the Unstoppable and the Magic Underpants, Stella the Unstoppable: the Talent Show Fiasco, and Stella the Unstoppable and the School Camp Kerfuffle. He has also published a review of Steve Capelin’s Paradiso in Queensland Review (2023), and articles 'When Nobel met Booker: Dario Fo, Barry Unsworth and one shambolic Italian summer' in The Conversation (2023) and 'Regurgitatus: my year wandering the halls of AI Hogwarts' in New Matilda (2023). As program director and lecturer in courses like WRIT7300 and WRIT7320, Newsome shapes writing education and contributes to the creative writing field through his practice and scholarship.

Professional Email: r.newsome@uq.edu.au