WRITER
I write books, screenplays, poetry, reviews and essays. Commercial commissions include: film press books and production notes, synopses, director's statements and website copy. As writer and filmmaker I have appeared as interviewer and guest In Conversation at book and film festivals in Australasia and internationally.
Previous commissions and clients include Newsroom, Sydney Review of Books, Te Herenga Waka Press, Ultimo Press, Twentieth Century Fox, Arena Films, Bazmark, Binnaburra Films, Bloomsbury, Dendy Films, Hibiscus Films, Big Shell Films, Jan Chapman Productions, and See-Saw Films. Other commissions include a special edition Cannes press book for Jane Campion's Palme D'Or & Academy Award-winning, The Piano, and a coffee table book for Baz Luhrmann's Academy Award-winner, Moulin Rouge.
BOOKS + ANTHOLOGIES
In the Time of the Manaroans, memoir, Te Herenga Waka Press 2020, Ultimo Press 2021
’Imaginary Cinema’, ‘Forest Lawn’, Te Pūrere / The Exodus: The Anthology of Expatriate New Zealand Poets, Cold Hub Press 2026
I’ll Never Get a Poem from this Neighbourhood’, ‘A Game of Two Halves: The Best of Sport 2005-2019’, Victoria University of Wellington Press 2021
’Animal Caution’, Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry, Hunter Publishers 2016
Mutes & Earthquakes
Small Time Spectre, poetry chapbook, Kilmog Press, 2010
’Nuclear Family Album: Rongelap 1954- ‘, Mutes &Earthquakes, Victoria University Press, 1997
CREATIVE/NON-FICTION
Essay, ‘A Good and Gentle Man’, Reading Room, 9 April 2024
Essay, ’I Don’t Have Time if You Are in a Hurry’, Reading Room, 10 June 2023
Essay on technology, ‘Five Ways’, Sydney Review of Books, June 4, 2021; Open Secrets anthology 2022
Essay, ‘All My Parents Exes Are Getting in Touch’, Reading Room, April 7, 2021
Essay, ‘My Childhood Books’, The Sapling, September 6, 2020
Essay on Katherine Mansfield, ‘She Slept With the Wrong Men’, Newsroom, July 11, 2023
Book review, ‘The Nude Hippies of Nelson’, (Commune), Newsroom, September 28, 2023
Book review, Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, Reading Room, February 11, 2023
FILM JOURNALISM
Moulin Rouge, coffee table book, Allen & Unwin 2001
‘Jane Campion’ in Jane Campion Interviews, University Press of Mississippi 1999
‘Making The Piano’ in The Piano (screenplay) by Jane Campion, Bloomsbury,1993
’Different complexions: an interview with Jane Campion’, Film in Aotearoa New Zealand, Victoria University Press 1992
PRESS BOOKS
The Piano (1993), Palme D’Or & Academy Award-winning drama, writer-director Jane Campion
Carcrash (1994), docu-drama, writer-director David Caesar, co-writer
Miro Bilbrough
Floating Life (1996), drama, writer-director Clara Law
The Boys (1997), crime drama, director Rowan Woods
Holy Smoke (2000), drama, writer-director Jane Campion
Moulin Rouge (2001) Academy Award-winning musical, writer-director
Baz Luhrmann
Look Both Ways (2004) drama with animation, writer-director Sarah Watt
Candy (2005) drama, writer Luke Davies, director Neil Armfield
Like Minds (2005), thriller, writer-director Gregory Read
$9.99 (2008), animation, writer-director Tatia Rosenthal
Testimonial
‘This is a short song of praise to introduce Miro Bilbrough, who I first met when she conducted a long interview with me for book publication. It was simply the best, most down to earth, irreverent and revealing of any I could remember reading. Sometime after this I asked her to write the production notes for The Piano. I chose her in particular because I knew her to be a writer and a poet, with a wide-ranging and very genuine love of cinema, rather than simply a film journalist. The qualities of her imagination—surprising and penetrating—and an abundance of initiative make her a lively and extremely promising creative entity.’
- Jane Campion, 20 June 1994
