Chris joined the Sydney Morning Herald in 1984 and worked as a leader writer, Opinion page editor, Editorial page editor and Religious Affairs editor over the next 16 years. During this time he was also published in other newspapers and magazines in Australia, the United States and the UK.
While still a regular columnist he left the Herald in 2000 to teach journalism at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. During his time there he wrote or co-wrote 8 non-fiction books on US-Latin American relations and religious sociology in Australia.
He first visited East Timor in 2010 to observe the development of its newspapers and community radio stations. He returned each year after that until Covid to make media presentations and to research efficient ways to communicate agronomic information to remote, low literacy farmers for which he was awarded a PhD from the Australian National University in 2019. He last visited in 2023 which was his 12th visit.
He retired from teaching at the end of 2019 to pursue an interest in crime writing.
His first novel “The Crocodiles Kill” was published in May 2022, and is currently completing his 6th book in a series based in contemporary East Timor for an independent US publisher – Coffeetown Press. He lives in the Blue Mountains.
