Edwin Colin Simpson

Edwin Colin Simpson (4 November 19088 February 1983), known professionally by his pen name Colin Simpson, was an Australian journalist, author and traveller. After a successful career as a journalist with Sydney newspapers and a writer of radio documentaries for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, he became a freelance writer of "popular travel books" were responsible for an article in The Sun'''s "Fact" supplement exposing the Ern Malley literary hoax.

In 1944 he went to the United States to report on the founding of the United Nations organisation and to study American magazine publishing techniques. While there he conducted interviews with celebrities including John L. Lewis, Claire Booth Luce, Billy Rose, Frank Sinatra and Henry Wallace.

For another documentary in the same year he joined the anthropologist Charles P. Mountford's American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land during which he taped Australian "Aboriginal rituals and songs never before heard on Australian radio..., along with Australian birdlife".

Career as writer His employment with the Australian Broadcasting Commission came to an end in 1950 when his contract was not renewed due to budget cuts instituted by the Australian government's treasury department.

The ASA established the annual Colin Simpson Lecture to commemorate "the journalist and author Colin Simpson, a founding member of the ASA, the driving force behind the introduction of Public Lending Right in 1975, and an accomplished travel writer and television host". A range of "illustrious... luminaries" from the Australian writing, publishing and journalism communities have delivered this lecture.

Honours 1981: Order of the British Empire (OBE) – for service to literature and journalism

Personal life In 1938 Simpson married Estelle Maud "Claire" Waterman, a graphic artist who would during his career contribute illustrations to his published books. She predeceased him in 1976. Adam with Arrows : Inside New Guinea, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1953.Adam in Plumes, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1954.Islands of Men : A Six-Part Book About Life in Melanesia, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1954. Illustrated with 12 colour-plates, other graphs, and with line decorations by Claire Simpson.

The wider worldThe Country Upstairs: Japan Today with a Philippine Interlude, Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1956. With decorations by Claire Simpson.Wake Up in Europe : A Book of Travel for Australians and New Zealanders, Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1960.Show Me a Mountain : The Rise of an Australian Company, Ampol, Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1961.Asia's Bright Balconies : Hong Kong, Macao, Philippines, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1962. With decoration drawings by Claire Simpson.Take Me to Spain, including Majorca and with a Sampling of Portugal, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1963. Maps by Josephine Mayo, line decorations by Claire Simpson.Take Me to Russia and Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1964. The Viking Circle : Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967.Greece : The Unclouded Eye, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1968.The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, London: Nelson, 1969; London: Panther, 1971. Joint author: Phillip Knightley.The New Australia, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1972.Bali and Beyond, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1972.Off to Asia : Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1973.Pleasure Islands of the South Pacific, Sydney: Methuen, 1979.Blue Africa : Travel in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, plus Indian Ocean Islands of Mauritius, Madagascar, Reunion, Seychelles, Cammeray, N.S.W. : Horwitz Grahame, 1981.

See alsoBooks and Authors''