Paul Voermans
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Paul Voermans (born 4 June 1960) is an Australian performer, community IT advocate, and writer of prose and poetry, whose work includes a number of novels. Published as science fiction, the novels contain elements of surrealism, horror, and humour. They have been compared to RA Lafferty and
Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...
.


Life and career

Paul Voermans was born in
Traralgon Traralgon ( , ) is a city located in the east of the Latrobe Valley in the Gippsland region of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia and the most populous city in the City of Latrobe and the region. The urban population of Traralgon at the ...
,
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
, in 1960. The son of
Indo INDO stands for Intermediate Neglect of Differential Overlap. It is a semi-empirical quantum chemistry method that is a development of the complete neglect of differential overlap (CNDO/2) method introduced by John Pople. Like CNDO/2 it uses zer ...
refugees, Voermans was brought up in suburban
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
under the White Australia Policy and during a wave of European immigration. In the 1970s, while still a teenager, he studied writing with
Vonda McIntyre Vonda Neel McIntyre () was an American science fiction writer and biologist. Early life and education Vonda N. McIntyre was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of H. Neel and Vonda B. Keith McIntyre, who were born in Poland, Ohio. She ...
, Christopher Priest, and George Turner at a
Clarion Clarion may refer to: Music * Clarion (instrument), a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages * The Register (music), register of a clarinet that ranges from B4 to C6 * A Trumpet (organ stop), trumpet organ stop that usually plays an octave abov ...
-style workshop held at Monash University. After studying drama at Melbourne State College, Voermans helped found B'Spell Performance Troupe, a community puppet and ''Commedia dell'arte'' theatre company, associated with
Handspan Theatre Handspan Theatre was a Melbourne-based puppetry and visual theatre company that operated between 1977 and 2002. History Handspan Theatre was founded as a cooperative by Ken Evans, Andrew Hansen, Helen Rickards, Maeve Vella, Peter J. Wilson and C ...
, Suitcase Theatre, and the Magic Mushroom Mime Troupe, performing at festivals around Australia, in schools, on streets, and a number of alternative Melbourne venues such as the Why Not Theatre and The Universal Theatre in the 1970s and 1980s. Voermans exhibited masks and puppets at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Arts Centre Melbourne and taught mime at the Victorian College of the Arts. He played the silent character Max Box in ''Trapp, Winkle & Box'' for ABC TV, appearing with
Wendy Harmer Wendy Gai Harmer (born Wendy Brown, 10 October 1955) is an Australian author, children's writer, journalist, playwright, dramatist, radio show host, comedian, and television personality. Early life and education Harmer was born in Yarram, the ...
, Robert Forza, and
Lynda Gibson Lynda Jane Wiseman "Gibbo" Gibson (21 March 1956 – 2 January 2004) was an Australian comedian and actress. Early life and education Lynda Jane Wiseman Gibson was born on 21 March 1956.(4 January 2004 ''The Age''. Retrieved 10 November 2018. ...
, before moving to the United Kingdom for a number of years, where he wrote his first novel while working as a butler and in the kitchen of a psychiatric institution in the late 1980s. Returning to Australia in the 1990s, Voermans helped launch VICNET, a proto-Internet service provider and community web publisher at the
State Library of Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in th ...
, leading the technical team that produced early versions of the genealogy database, social media (My Connected Community), and intranet, installing free public internet in libraries based on a direct US satellite service, and advocating for information equality for regional and other disadvantaged groups. He has since worked for the Victorian Government in Information Technology innovation, cloud computing and remote working. Voermans has recently returned to publishing novels. He lives in South Gippsland, near Meeniyan.


Themes

Theatre, colonialism, natural history, insanity, the dynamics of friendship groups, along with off-the-wall and often scatological humour, are all preoccupations for Paul Voermans. Chantal Zabus has described ''And Disregards the Rest,'' a novel involving ''The Tempest'' and alien invasion, as being about "
ecocide Ecocide (from Greek 'home' and Latin 'to kill') is the destruction of the natural environment, environment by humans. Ecocide threatens all human populations that are dependent on natural resources for maintaining Ecosystem, ecosystems and ensu ...
", saying "Voermans is aware of the intertext that emerged, in the 1980s, strata from sci-fi texts and 'high art' postmodernist fiction", asserting that "''And Disregards the Rest'' indubitably draws on the cyberpunk repertoire". Critic and novelist George Turner once wrote about Voermans's work that "there are enough things wrong with this novel to sink the collected writings of Tolstoy and Dickens", noting that these faults might not stand in the way of Voermans's writing career. Paul Voermans's themes are more directly accessible in his poetry.


Work


Novels

* ''And Disregards the Rest,'' Victor Gollancz, (1992) also appeared as: ** Translation: Die letzte Vorstellung
erman Erman may refer to: Given name * Erman Bulucu (born 1989), Turkish footballer * Erman Eltemur (born 1993), Turkish karateka * Erman Güraçar (born 1974), Turkish footballer * Erman Kılıç (born 1983), Turkish footballer * Erman Kunter (born ...
Heyne (1999) * ''The Weird Colonial Boy'' Victor Gollancz, (1993) also appeared as: ** Translation: ''Der Quantenfisch''
erman Erman may refer to: Given name * Erman Bulucu (born 1989), Turkish footballer * Erman Eltemur (born 1993), Turkish karateka * Erman Güraçar (born 1974), Turkish footballer * Erman Kılıç (born 1983), Turkish footballer * Erman Kunter (born ...
Heyne (1996) * ''Giving it Away'' (excerpt), ''Overland'' 133, (1993) * ''Parliament of Sims'' (excerpt), ''Overland'' 188,
Jill Sparrow Jill is an English feminine given name, a short form of the name Gillian, which in turn originated as a Middle English variant of Juliana. Jill was such a common name that it had an everygirl quality, as in the 15th century English nursery rhym ...
(co-author) (2007) * ''The White Library'', PS Publishing (2020)


Short fiction

* "The Broken Butterfly", The View from the Edge, George Turner (ed.), Norstrilia Press (1977) * "The Beastie in Man", FEAR Magazine (1990) * "Malcolm and the Intergalactic Slug-Suckers", ''The Lottery: Nine Science Fiction Stories'', Lucy Sussex (ed.) Omnibus Books / Ashton Scholastic Group (1994) * "My Sister, Cristeta, Who Is Magic", ''Alien Shores'', Peter McNamara; Margaret Winch (eds.) Aphelion Publications (1994) * "The Girl Who Stole the Current Buns from the Space/Time Kitchen", ''Aurealis'' #13 (1994)


Essays

* Write Your Bloody Heart Out: Re-regarding Disregards (1993) * ''The Future's Not Ours to See Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction'' (1996) by Damien Broderick(2000)


Reviews

* ''Call to the Edge'' by Sean McMullen, ''SF Commentary'', 73/74/75, (1993) * "Scripts Deep Enough: Kim Stanley Robinson's ''Antarctica"'' ''New York Review of Science Fiction'' (1999) * ''Fifty Degrees Below,'' Kim Stanley Robinson, ''Subtopia'' by AL McCann, ''Australian Speculative Fiction: A Genre Overview,'' by Donna Maree Hanson (ed) The ''Fiction Factory'', by Jack Dann & friends, ''Year's Best Australian Science Fiction And Fantasy - Vol.1'' Bill Congreve (ed), ABC Book Show, ABC Radio National (2005-2006). * "Technique of Awful: When Extremity Takes Us Past the Real", ''New York Review of Science Fiction'' (2017)


Interviews

* ''Australian Landscapes'' (1993) by Steven Paulsen


Exhibitions

"Manipulating Reality, Puppetry and Mask in Australia" at the National Gallery of Victoria (1981)


Performance

B'Spell Performance Troupe: * ''Bitz'' * ''Don't Laugh this is Cirrus'' * ''The Deceived'' * ''Of Rats and Men'' Jika Jika Puppets: ''The Adventures of Platypus Phil'' ''Aaargh''! Solo Performance ''Dobba'' (with Karl Presser). "Wild Thing" Darebin Arts Centre, The Five O'Clock Shadows "Trapp, Winkle & Box", ABC TV


Poetry

Dunning-Kruger Dance Mirror, the website of Paul Voermans.


Awards

The novels ''And Disregards the Rest'' and ''The Weird Colonial Boy'' were shortlisted for the Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award, the
Ditmar Award The Ditmar Award (formally the Australian SF ("Ditmar") Award; formerly the "Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award") has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention (the "Natcon") to recognise ...
.


Sources


The Encyclopaedia of Science FictionThe Speculative Fiction DatabaseThe New York Review of Science FictionNational Library of Australia
* Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction


References


External links


''Tempests After Shakespeare'' - Publisher
by Chantal Zabus which mentions ''And Disregards the Rest''. *
PS Publishing UK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voermans, Paul 1960 births Australian science fiction writers Living people Australian people of Dutch descent Australian people of Indonesian descent Australian male novelists 20th-century Australian novelists 21st-century Australian novelists