Hey, welcome.
Here you can find out about my books and podcast, explore the research behind them, or get in touch with me via my literary agent and muse, the bristly, enigmatic Mrs Bradley.
New in 2026!
Almost from the beginning, Melbourne was dissed as a ‘City of Lanes’.
By 1851, the city grid was already crazed by 250 laneways, including many that survive today – and plenty that don’t.
What became of Felix Place, Magnet Parade, Vengeance Lane, Blossom Alley, Roach Terrace and the rest?
Lost Laneways of Melbourne unearths the origin story of Melbourne’s iconic back lanes and resurrects those lost on the way to modernity.
Lost Laneways includes maps and 8 themed walking tours of Melbourne’s lesser-known lanes.
→Readers, Please Note: The book also features a comprehensive List of Laneways, the sense of which got somewhat garbled in the printing process.
With grey text rendered indistinguishable from black, it’s not clear which of the listed laneway names have been superseded (grey) and which are current (black).
A more faithful version of the list (and the accompanying maps) can be found here.
[link to PDF List of Laneways]
Dropping in October 2025! My gorgeous new book from Melbourne University Press ¬
Shutter City: Fragments of a Forgotten Melbourne
View Shutter City and my other books here »
To explore the Shutter City images online, go to the Shutter City images tab here »
Nothing on TV
My podcast, Nothing on TV, ransacks Trove Newspapers, the National Library of Australia’s online repository of digitised historical newsprint, to present stories from an era when there was – literally – nothing on TV.
Nothing on TV has itself become a relic, stalled at 15 episodes. But if you haven’t yet listened, you can find all the episodes here or by clicking on the TV at the top of the page.