Hybrid Publishers

29/07/2025

For those in Brisbane, you're invited to the launch of 'Chalk and Cheese'! https://avidreader.com.au/pages/12510-ChalkCheese-RossFitzgeraldIanMcFadyen

28/07/2025

Now out!
'PRISONS: The Good, the Bad, the Mad and the Sad' by John Van Groningen
A fascinating memoir of a former sociologist/criminologist in the United States and Australia. Rather than a chronological memoir, this book provides anecdotes and accounts, often serious, sometimes funny, about life in the prison system. It includes questions and answers, a photo section and an appendix titled ‘Who is to blame?’.
With a foreword by Jon Faine.
https://www.hybridpublishers.com.au/product/prisons-the-good-the-bad-the-mad-and-the-sad/

25/07/2025

‘… a rare gem – an intricate fabrication that is profoundly human’
– Dr Michael Briody
Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen's powerful new fiction, 'Chalk and Cheese', is a tale of two 80-year-old former radio stars, Bill and Ben, who hate each other, but who end up in the same nursing home.
This revealing novel explores elder issues and shows how (with the aid of their grandchildren), Bill and Ben join together to protect and enhance the lives and circumstances of the elderly.
Even though 'Chalk and Cheese' can be seen as a wry comedy using clear-eyed satire, it is also a compelling story which challenges our views on life in nursing homes and how the elderly are treated.
https://www.hybridpublishers.com.au/product/chalk-and-cheese-a-fabrication-by-ross-fitzgerald-and-ian-mcfadyen/

15/07/2025

'Chalk and Cheese' coming soon!

"As a comic novel with serious intent, Chalk and Cheese is a rare gem – an intricate fabrication that is profoundly human. It is, without question, the best novel I have read this year,: writes book reviewer MICHAEL BRIODY.

07/07/2025

"I opened a book and in I strode. Now nobody can find me. I've left my chair, my house, my road, my town and my world behind me." -Julia Donaldson

"Quiet Time in Favorite Chair" Artist Gina Brown (ginabrownart.com)

01/05/2025

Melbourne Jewish Book Week
Welcome to the latest episode of Writing Lives. Our guest is award-winning Israeli author, Shifra Horn, in conversation with Melbourne-based author and writing mentor, Dr Lee Kofman. This conversation with the internationally renowned Shifra Horn focuses on her latest book 'Scorpion Dance' and her life as a writer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s51w1jUixkE

01/05/2025

Great night at the Artists' Bar in Brunswick for the launch of 'With Sappho in the Antipathies' by James Harpur! Photos by Nicholas Walton-Healey.

16/04/2025

Congratulations to poet James Harpur on becoming Recipient of a Cork City Council residency in Paris! https://www.corkcoco.ie/en/news/cork-county-council-and-centre-culturel-irlandais-announce-james-harpur-as-recipient-of-artist
Read his recently published book, 'With Sappho in the Antipathies'.

Cork County Council Library and Arts Service has announced that West Cork-based poet James Harpur has been selected as the recipient of the artist residency at Ireland’s cultural headquarters on the European mainland.

03/04/2025

https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/04/03/with-sappho-in-the-antipathies-an-irish-poets-love-letter-to-melbourne-2025-by-james-harpur/

Alas, I am late for Irish Reading Month with this one, but I’m sure Cathy won’t mind because With Sappho in the Antipathies An Irish poet’s love letter to Melbourne is by one of I…

14/02/2025

Do you wish you read more?

New research looking at how Australians read for recreation has shaped 10 tailored tactics to help you read more based on whatever is getting in your way.

11/01/2025

“About as funny as an orphanage on fire!”
BARRY HUMPHRIES/ AUSTEN TAYSHUS
by Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM

Since the death of my long-time friend, the comic genius Barry Barry Humphries, by far the most outrageously talented stand-up performer in Australia is the Sydney-based Jewish comedian, Austen Tayshus.
Indeed Barry told me that Austen Tayshus was the only contemporary comedian who made him gasp, before he laughed. In comparison, most other stand ups were, he said, “about as funny as an orphanage on fire!”
Last week I attended The Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
With the exception of a Korean le***an who’d had four abortions, none of the stand ups who performed, for hours and hours, were a patch on Austen Tayshus.
Yet just as a few years before his death, Barry was ‘cancelled’ by feminatzis and fellow travellers of the woke brigade, these days Austen Tayshus finds it very hard to get a gig in Sydney or Melbourne. This is despite the fact that his shows still go down a treat in country and regional Australia.
Anyone interested to learn about the life so far of Sandy Gutman, aka Austen Tayshus, might care to read my co-authored biography Austen Tayshus: Merchant of Menace, which is available on-line from Amazon etc.
Professor Ross Fitzgerald’s most recent books are a memoir, Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey,and the latest Grafton Everest political satire,co-authored with Ian McMcFadyen, Pandemonium, both published by Hybrid Publishers in Melbourne, and available online from Amazon etc
A four boxed set of Grafton Everest adventures, The Ascent of Everest, is also available online and direct from Hybrid in Melbourne.

18/12/2024

Message from Ross Fitzgerald:
50 years ago today: Grafton Everest and the revolution in Mozambique.

50 years ago today, my final year Politics student & fellow cricketer at the University of NSW, Jonnie Sheens and I were in Mozambique when the revolution was in full sway.

We seemed to be the only Europeans driving into the troubles!

Coming from Swaziland (where we had won a motza at the casino) we were stopped at the border by armed and angry Frelimo fighters.
Jonnie's response, "We are friends of Gough Whitlam!", was greeted with puzzlement.

On the way in to Mozambique, we saw squads of Portuguese families fleeing what is now Maputo for South Africa.

We especially noticed a number of large vans bearing the name GRAFTON EVEREST REMOVALS.

Despite many spurious claims to the contrary, that is how the bumbling, overweight, teetotal Dr Professor Grafton Everest actually got his name.

In all nine Grafton Everest sexual/political satires so far published the same key characters appear. These include Grafton and his wife Janet who both teach at the University of Mangoland (where Grafton was a Professor of Life Skills & Hospitality; Janet a Lecturer in Fibre Art) , plus their daughter Lee-Anne and her long time carer Nanny Neal.

The latest Grafton Everest adventure, Pandemonium, (published by Hybrid in Melbourne and co-authored with my Queensland buddy Ian McFadyen of 'Comedy Company' fame) has been entered for the 2025 Russell Prize for Humour Writing.

In Maputo, Jonnie and I stayed in the top floor suite of the opulent Hotel Turismo.
There, on the carefully manicured lawns, we played croquet – with machinegun fire in the distance.

From the Hotel Turismo we sent, for his birthday, a telegram to Australian cricket star Doug Walters, who was born on 21 December 1945.

Did Dougie receive it, we wonder?

Have a peaceful and productive New Year.

Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM
"Greystoke", Redfern, NEW SOUTH WALES,
Australia