Description
A one-time environmental scientist, career public servant and Assistant Commissioner of Taxation, Keith McKenry is a leading member of Australia’s small clan of folklorists. He chaired UNESCOs Special Committee of Technical and Legal Experts on the Safeguarding of Folklore and was a member of the Commonwealth Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia and co-author of its 1987 report, Folklife: Our Living Heritage.
His latest work, The Lies That Made Australia, is McKenry’s expose of Australia’s self image.
His publications include Australia’s Lost Folk Songs and The Folklore of Terrorism: Songs, Poems and Sketches from a Crazy World. He was for eight years President of Australia’s National Folk Festival.
He is also Director of Fanged Wombat Productions and a persistent performance poet.
His solo CD Bugger the Music, Give Us a Poem! won the prestigious Golden Gumleaf for Album of the Year at Tamworth. He lives with his wife Jenny on their farm in central Victoria, where they breed alpacas and Wiltshire Horn sheep.
