Alumni and Supporters

Master of Arts, 2012

Doctor of Philosophy, 2015

Author and academic Brendan Ritchie has received several accolades throughout his career, but it is something much simpler that stands out as a career highlight for him.

“Seeing high school students study and enjoy my books is probably one of my biggest personal highlights,” Brendan explains. “And hearing the feedback on them - it’s awesome.”

Graduating from ECU with a Master of Arts in 2012 and Doctor of Philosophy in 2015, the author of three published novels says he didn’t set out to pursue a writing career.

“I studied film initially and realised that the one the one area I liked the most was writing, so from there the opportunity to study screenwriting and then creative writing at ECU was really attractive,” Brendan says.

“It was a great supervisor who encouraged me to pursue my writing when I'd been focused on film prior to that and she, for some reason, believed that I had the potential to be a successful writer.

“So I took a chance to pursue that, first with screenwriting and then having enjoyed that move further along to creative writing and working on novels.”

Brendan says he was fortunate to receive a scholarship at ECU to complete a PhD in creative writing, which was where his first published novel was formed.

“I've managed to publish three novels so far with a couple of different publishers. The first of those was part of my PhD project at ECU, which was a novel called Carousel which has been published widely in Australia, longlisted for a couple of things, and now is on in the curriculum in high schools around the place.”

The young adult fiction was followed up with the sequel Beyond Carousel, and his third novel Eta Draconis was published in 2023 after winning the 2022 Dorothy Hewett Award – a national award for unpublished manuscripts – and is gaining great reviews.

“The Dorothy Hewitt Award was a really significant award to win,” Brendan says. “They get three or four hundred entries from across Australia and the manuscript for Eta Draconis won, which means there's prize money attached and a publication contract. It’s a great publishing opportunity and really good exposure.”

When he’s not writing young adult fiction, Brendan is lecturing at ECU’s South West campus, helping students in the UniPrep course and a casual academic in creative writing with the School of Arts and Humanities.

“My main my main role at ECU is teaching into an academic enabling program called Uni Prep, which is a pathway program for students to find their way to university when they may not have been eligible through conventional pathways such as the ATAR."

“I’ve been teaching that for a little while now and really enjoy helping students find their way to university when maybe they considered it to be a problematic option for a while. And that was kind of the case with me too really - I didn’t land at university straight out of high school, didn't necessarily do that well in my ATAR, but I’ve really benefited from the university journey.”

Teaching, writing and a young family at home, Brendan acknowledges it can be a juggle, but is enjoying the balance between author and academic.

“As long as I can keep publishing interesting and original work and hopefully be a decent dad then that's the goal really."

“I think the balance is nice. Writing is quite an isolated, insular pursuit, so doing just that - whilst it kind of sounds lovely in theory - I think probably for me it wouldn't work as well because I wouldn’t be engaging with the world as much,” he says.

“So the mix is great. I guess the battle is to continue to publish and to make sure that there's time to write.

“My first book I wrote quite quickly, I didn’t have too many other commitments and in the framework of the PhD, the great thing about that is you’ve got that intensive time to focus on it. Whereas Eta Draconis probably took four years to eventually come about whilst juggling work and babies and parenting and everything.

“As long as I can keep publishing interesting and original work and hopefully be a decent dad then that's the goal really.

It was ECU’s affiliation and success in the arts that was a big drawcard for Brendan, who credits his time there for setting up his career.

“Having a great postgraduate supervisor and co-supervisor was really important for the support and the belief and encouragement. I guess any postgraduate journey is a long one, so having that guidance along the way was really great.”

For anyone about to begin their time at university, Brendan says he encourages students to keep an open mind.

“It’s hard to know exactly what course or direction to take even once you start university. I changed quite a bit, I started in marketing and then shifted across to media. I enjoyed everything but eventually found my area in writing.

“So just enjoy the journey through your electives and different topics and subjects that come your way in the first year or so of your study, irrespective of what major you're taking on.

“And that way you don't feel that initial pressure to know exactly what path to take.”