We're about Australian Country Life, and we're a little bit out there! Welcome to our remote living media hub, Woop Woop, an imprint of Australian Country Life. Because we're both journalists and writers, we decided to join forces in 2012 to create a media hub focusing on life outside the big cities. Both of us have long associations with the country, and we both live outside cities. Mary lives at
Blackheath in the NSW Blue Mountains, and part-time in rural south-west France. We know what life on the edge can be like! We share interests in the quirky, the unusual, the retro, the hilarious, the tasty, and the progressive sides of life in remote regions. We expect Woop Woop will fill the gap in the traditional rural media for stories and ideas that are 'out there'. We love hearing stories about life outside the big cities - come along for the ride. Mary Moody and Michael Burge. Mary Moody (http://www.marymoody.com.au)
Mary Moody was a presenter on the ABC's "Gardening Australia" for ten years and has been writing about self-sufficiency and gardening for more than three decades. Her seminal titles about the food-garden-farm-family connection include "The Good Life", "The Long Table" and "The Gardener's Companion". In 2000 Mary embarked on an enduring fascination with rural France and spends part of every year living there, guiding tours for garden lovers and gourmands. She also guides tours to Nepal. France created a whole new subject for Mary's writing, resulting in a series of bestselling books, beginning with "Au Revoir" and its three (and counting) sequels, detailing the joys and many tribulations of life in rural France. "Lunch with Madame Murat", a book and SBS TV documentary were part of the mix. Michael Burge (http://burgewords.wordpress.com)
Michael Burge grew up on a mixed stock and crop farm near Delungra in the NSW New England region. He has worked in rural and agricultural media in Australia, Britain and North America for the past 20 years. He produced and directed a series of documentaries for UK-based Farming Press (a subsidiary of United News & Media). His subjects included gardener Beth Chatto, shepherdess Katy Cropper, and farm-boy-turned-international artist, Andy Goldsworthy. Back home, Michael worked for Sydney-based agribusiness media experts Anvil Media; and edited and wrote for Blue Mountains Life, which gave him the opportunity to write about a region he had a 30-year association with. In 2012 he began working for Fairfax Regional Media as a sub-editor for weekly 'bibles of the bush', The Land and Queensland Country Life. He was deputy editor of FarmOnline and senior journalist at the Jimboomba Times.
