Founders

Catchfire Press was created by a group of very passionate individuals, and this section is devoted to those founding committee members who have passed away. Their contributions will not be forgotten by the Committee and membership.

Norman Talbot (1936-2004)

Lisbet de Castro Lopo (1937-2002)

Norman Talbot was born and educated in England, gaining his BA from Durham and his Ph.D. from Leeds, Norman came to a university lectureship in English at the University of Newcastle in 1963, with his wife and first child. His later children were born in Newcastle.

Apart from scholarly publications, Norman is the author of eleven books of poetry (the first in 1968, and the first five published by the lamented South Head Press) and editor of nineteen. He has taught over fifty creative writing courses and performed before live audiences and on radio in several countries. He has been published in most Australian and many overseas periodicals, and is represented in many anthologies. His Four Zoas of Australia, Paper Bark Press 1992, was short-listed for the National Book Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Award. Since his early retirement (1993, at professorial rank) from the University of Newcastle to become a full-time writer and literary consultant, he has published two new verse collections, and completed his first two prose fantasies, as well as several stories. His beautiful collaboration with the artist John Montefiore, The Book of Changes, was published in December 1999.

In 1964 Norman and a group of friends founded Nimrod Publications, which he took over in 1965. This small firm published over four hundred writers from the Hunter Valley, in nearly forty books. His factual Babel Handbooks, including guides to spelling and to poetic terms, has also proved a valuable resource for writers. Since his retirement he has expanded his Nimrod Literary Consultancy, whose five consultants assess and edit many kinds of writing. A foundation member of Catchfire Press, he was publications editor for five of its first six titles, and was its vice-president until forced to take over the presidency in April 2002. The most recent of his many awards was the Broadway Poetry Prize at the 2002 Australian Poetry Festival.

He died suddenly in January, 2004.

Lisbet de Castro Lopo was born in Denmark, migrated to Australia in 1967, and lived in Newcastle from 1970 till her death. She held an M.SC. (equiv.) and Dip. Ed. (equiv.) from the University of Copenhagen, an MA from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from the University of Newcastle; she was a lecturer and tutor in universities in Denmark, the USA and Australia.

From 1981-1992 she was coordinator of the Hunter Area Migrant Health Service’s Interpreter Service, and Danish interpreter for the Migrant Health Service and the Ethnic Affairs Commission. From 1985-1992 she was Honorary Secretary of the management committee of the Newcastle and Hunter Migrant Resource Centre. Often in recent years she worked as travel guide to groups of elderly Danish tourists visiting Newcastle and the Hunter, and lecturer on Australian social and cultural life.

On her retirement in 1992, Lisbet joined the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Hunter Region), served as its president 1994-1997, and vice-president the following year. During her presidency she was also the Hunter’s representative on the State Council of the FAW. She was a member of the Hunter Writers’ Centre from its inception, and also a member of the NSW Writers’ Centre and the National Book Council of Australia.

In January 1997 Lisbet was one of the seven founders of what has become Catchfire Press, and its founding president. She has had two novels published, one in England and the other in Australia. She died suddenly in April 2002.