David P Reiter

David Philip Reiter (born 1947) is an award-winning poet and writer of fiction and multimedia based in Brisbane, Australia. His fourth poetry book, Hemingway in Spain and Selected Poems,^[1] was shortlisted for the 1998 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature and was made into a film^[2] in 2006. His previous books include The Cave After Saltwater Tide (Penguin, 1994) for which he won the Queensland Premier’s Poetry Award. His book of short fiction, Triangles,^[3] was shortlisted for the 2000 Steele Rudd Award. IP released his first novel Liars and Lovers^[4] in 2003, and The Greenhouse Effect, a novel for junior readers, was published by Lothian Books (Hachette Livre) in 2004. In 2008. Real Guns,^[5] a children’s picture book illustrated by Irish artist Patrick J Murphy, and a multimedia CD anthology, Rainshadows,^[6] representing 30 authors, were released in 2007, and Global Cooling,^[7] a sequel to The Greenhouse Effect, has just been released. His most recent book is the satire Primary Instinct,^[8] about life in a typical primary school. David has been writer-in-residence at a number of places, most recently Bundanon (the Arthur Boyd property), and in Auckland, New Zealand, at the Michael King Writers’ Centre during February–March 2008.

Biography

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1947, he was adopted shortly after birth by Jewish parents Alexander and Freda Reiter, and brought up in a working class neighbourhood. His adoptive father, a self-employed truck driver, died of a heart attack in 1958, leaving his mother to raise David as an only child. In 1966 he moved to Oregon, where he completed his BA in the Independent Studies Program at the University of Oregon. He married Carol Geneva Rechard in 1969 and moved to Alberta, Canada, where both attended the University of Alberta. David completed his Master's Degree in American Literature, writing his thesis on William Faulkner's The Wild Palms owing to his interest in interdisciplinary subjects. He began publishing stories in prestigious journals like The Fiddlehead (University of New Brunswick) and poems in journals like Canadian Literature. His first paid employment was as a Technical Editor with the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment in Cold Lake, Alberta, followed by an appointment as a Scientific Editor at the Northern Forest Research Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. His interest in environmental matters led him to be a publishing consultant for several Government departments such as Environment Canada.

In 1975, he accepted as position as a lecturer at Cariboo College, a two year university level institution in the interior of British Columbia, where he taught literature and writing for 10 years. During this time, he was President of the College's Faculty Association, and active in the Provincial organisation representing college teaching staff. He also acted as Chief Negotiator for the faculty during several contract rounds. In 1980 he took leave of absence to attend the University of Denver, where he completed his PhD in Creative Writing, with a collection of stories as his dissertation, and American Literature as his literary field of speciality. Shortly after he returned to Cariboo College, he and his wife were divorced. He was invited to run as a candidate for Provincial parliament for the New Democratic Party in 1982 in a election campaign narrowly lost to the incumbent Social Credit Party. Soon after, he and his partner Helen Gilbert moved to Vancouver, where he taught for a year at the British Columbia Institute of Technology then briefly at the University of British Columbia before migrating to Australia in November, 1986.

His first job in Australia was as a lecturer in Professional Writing at the then Canberra College of Advanced Education (now the University of Canberra), where he set up one of the country's first electronic editing programs and was founding editor of the literary magazine Redoubt. During that time he was invited to join the Five Islands Press cooperative, which subsequently published his first volume of poetry, The Snow in Us, which focuses on life among the Inuit, in 1989. His second volume, Changing House, was a transitional work, mostly set in Canada, continuing his interest in historical research and mythology. It was published in 1991 by Jacaranda Press, a division of Jacaranda-Wiley.

He married Cherie Lorraine Dawson in 1992 shortly after resigning his position at the University of Canberra and becoming Publishing Manager for the Board of Senior Secondary School Studies in Brisbane. In 1993 he became Publishing Manager for the Criminal Justice Commission where he worked for three years. Interactive Publications Pty Ltd (IP) was a business he founded in 1994 as sole trader in his consultancy work for a number of Government departments. Departing from the Criminal Justice Commission in 1996, he changed the primary focus of IP to a literary publishing company, publishing Hemingway in Spain and Selected Poems as its first title after Penguin Books, which had originally offered to publish it, discontinued their poetry publishing program. Several ex-Penguin poets came to IP to be published. Hemingway in Spain was subsequently shortlisted for the John Bray Award at the Adelaide Festival in 1998.

IP has expanded to a national publishing company with four imprints under his direction, and David continues to publish his work under those imprints, especially his multimedia and children's titles. Much in demand as a speaker and workshop leader, he regularly undertakes national tours and residencies in Australia and overseas. His interest in digital compositing and publishing has led him to become regarded as an expert in Australia on the subject, where IP is a market leader in the development and distribution of digital titles. IP has also forged a number of partnerships with overseas companies such as Lightning Source, BookSurge, Amazon and Google in promoting its digital program.

References

1. ^ "Hemingway in Spain". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/HIS.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
2. ^ "Hemingway in Spain DVD". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/HIS-DVD.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
3. ^ "Triangles". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/TRI.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
4. ^ "Liars and Lovers". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/LL.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
5. ^ "Real Guns by David P Reiter / Patrick J Murphy". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/RG.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
6. ^ "Rainshadows: Best of IP". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/RS.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
7. ^ "Global Cooling". Ipoz.biz. 30 August 2008. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/GC.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 
8. ^ "Primary Instinct". Ipoz.biz. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/PI.htm. Retrieved 20 October 2011. 

Persondata
Name	Reiter, David P
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1947
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death