We are working on an AMAZING interactive website. It is ALMOST ready. In the meantime, here is a bio breakdown, and contact details.

Matt Zurbo is a strange and wonderful cat. A man of many hats. He is a bush (forest) worker, the sort you see on dusk, covered in mud and sweat, coming out of the mountain gully mists. He has been a harvester, he has built many temperate rainforests, been a wood cutter, a track builder from Tasmania’s coastal cliffs, to the Outback, to the FNQ tropics. He has played over 700 games of Aussie Rules Football, performed stand-up comedy as a bloated ex wrestler, lived by the seat of his pants and won an Emmy, and been featured in the NYT. He has a lovely Venezuelan wife, Elena, and a gloriously extroverted child, Cielo. When Cielo was one, Matt - working hard, often dangerous jobs while dragging his young family across the country - wrote a children’s story a day for a year, as an ode to her. And gave them all away for free, gaining himself an international following. (Cielo 365 Stories).

For now, Matt and his family live on the remote shipwreck coast of Victoria – who knows what next year will bring? Their home is on a forgotten horse and buggy trail, with old wagon wheels and kangaroo mobs about the yard. At the moment, Matt works in the wet, temperate mountains, tree fern harvesting, track building, and tree planting, and on his writing every night, once Cielo is in bed. 5 hours sleep usually does him. He has had many kids books published, YA novels, sports books, music journalism, poetry, you name it. It’s all stories to him!

The physical nature of Matt’s work leaves his mind free to roam – and oh, how it roams! As his many hats will attest, he practices what he preaches; Live life and stories will follow. 

Matt tends to overthink, so he finds the harder, the more dangerous the job is, the simpler his life is. In his community he is known primarily as a “good bushie”. A rare breed of hard-working loners.

Temperate rainforests consist of four layers. Ground ferns, tree ferns and shrubs, mid-range and buffer trees, and the prehistoric monoculture Myrtle Beech trees. Many of these species seed in adjoining logging coupes and remote mountain track cuttings, where industry eventually destroys them. Matt harvests them before this happens, and turns many derogated gullies on private land back into rainforest. It is a long, hard process, taking years, but ultimately worth it. 

His biggest project was 2 kms long, and took him 6 winters, with another ten of maintenance so it might establish itself. What was once 14ft blackberries and thistles, is now a thriving wildlife-filled rainforest. 

He has also, unashamedly worked in the timber community, harvesting tree ferns before they are crushed by the logging process, doing commercial tree planting on the slopes of the Otway Ranges and Tasmanian mountains, been a wood cutter, and various other jobs.

Matt spent a number of years as a track builder all across Australia. Desert, snow, the Outback, giant costal cliffs; anywhere remote and beautiful. Some jobs were a month, others years. Always scrambling for places for his young family to live, while driving back and forth across the continent. 

It was an adventurous life, not just for the landscapes, but for the many varied people of this vast continent. Characters, and experiences were everywhere. 

Matt and his wife, Elena, decided to stop living on the road once their daughter, Cielo, hit school age. 

They now live off Moonlight Head, wedged between the Otway Ranges and the 12 Apostles. Their home is on 2,000 acres full of grey kangaroo mobs, that rolls down to the Shipwreck Coast, with a beautiful of wagon trail pub on the property. A 5km dirt track takes them to several raw beaches full of monstrous surf, with 200-year-old shipwreck anchors in the rockpools. 

Several years ago, it was off one of these reefs Matt put his father’s ashes to sea. A quietly spoken, passionate Hungarian refugee. Now, Matt and Cielo visit him once a week, goofing around on the beaches and in the rockpools after school, nobody else for miles. 

Climbing back up the cliffs that overlook the reef, Cielo always blows the old man a kiss, and tells him about her week. 

Matt has been short listed for the CBC Book of the Year for Idiot Pride, YA, had his children’s book, I Got a Rocket turning into a cartoon that won an Emmy, has a massive following for his sports writing and football novels, and a cult following for his work on music. 

Children’s books

Blow Kid, Blow! A boy plays his trumpet and finds the music takes him places.

I Got A Rocket! A child gets a rocket for their birthday, but there’s a twist!

My Dad’s a Wrestler A boy worships his hopeless dad for never stopping trying - currently being pitched as a cartoon.

Fred the Croc A ratbag crocodile eats some tourists… and becomes famous! Also a cartoon pitch.

Lulu’s Wish A little girl wishes with all her might on a small stone.

Tommy Tuckers A collection of short, funny stories about a loveable ratbag… and his dad!

Moon A whimsy-filled story about a distant child and parent using the moon to be close.

I Love Footy The power of imagination and sport.

and 

IF I COULD the ultimate story in his Cielo 365 Stories challenge. Illustrated by the WONDERFUL Patrice Barton.

Young Adult

Idiot Pride Young boys, doing nothing, going nowhere. Honest and raw.

Flyboy and the Invisible Wild, crazy, grimy fantasy set in the Outback.

Hot Nights, Cool Dragons A small girl gets caught up with dragons and their mysterious, dangerous, Jazz-filled world.

Hot Nights, Cool Dragons; Soundtrack Matt hunted down all the music artist chapters were built around, and made a soundtrack to the book!

Adult/Sport

Champions All An oral history of Aussie Rules football – 4yrs to write, 3 laps of the country, 700 pages, 171 frank interviews, footballer-to-footballer.

Heart and Soul The full, best 15 interviews from Champions All.

Sports (and Life) Column: The Footy Almanac. Link features typical story.

Upcoming

The Dark Hour (a noir Sci-Fi thriller.)

Unpublished Works 

Matt is, unfortunately, hopeless with self-promotion. When he finishes a novel, all he seems to care about it starting the next one. He has a catalogue of unpublished adult and YA works,

three film scripts, three graphic novels, a SEA of children’s books, including the self-illustrated Beautiful Stories for Awkward Monster and its sister book, Mermaids and Mermen. And so on… 

Maybe one day he’ll get them out there. For now, he has two novels, numerous kids’ books and a film script he is writing. 

Poetry

Much of Matt’s writing gets its substance from his poetry. Matt writes and publishes copious amounts of poetry (and several published novels) under various nom-de-plumes. He has a well-renowned mentor who has been working with him to hon this craft over 40 years. 

Matt doesn’t do things by halves. If in, all in! His talks involve comedy, costumes, passion, thoughtfulness, big scene projection, live music, teacher notes and follow-ups, as well as group exercises. They are interactive, hilarious, very informative and fun! Less about him, than the art of finding and expressing stories. His main theme is they are everywhere, and easy to find… for everyone!

Sometimes Matt wishes he had the ability to focus on the ONE genre of writing, but there are so many stories to tell! 

His most favourite story is Elena and the Giants.

Matt’s comedy often plays a bloated, gravelly-voiced ex-wrestler called The Perculator, complete with orange wrestling costume with big love heart on its chest (because sleeves aren’t big enough!). (40)

This character started off as a late-night comedy and live music radio show, that developed a cult following. It championed the awkward, different and lost at heart… which is almost everybody! Each week the tiny studio was overflowing with characters, live bands, and passers-by, all crammed in, dancing and full of chaos.

Then the show went live, culminating in a season at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. 

The Perculator is Matt’s biggest creative joy, but takes up too much of his writing time, so doesn’t get about as much as Matt would love him to. 

Matt will write a film based on him one day. What the Perculator has to say about humanity is just too important. 

Aussie Rules is a very arduous contact sport, involving copious running and collisions. And ball skills. Most players give it away after about 100 games because of the toll it takes on their bodies. Last year, Matt completed his 720th game, most of which were played in the bush (country) all around the nation. He has broken over 25 bones, had ten surgeries and fifteen concussions, but the stories footy has given him, the journeys and adventures across the country, the communities it has opened the door to, the life experiences, have made every knock with it. 

Matt has also coached junior football on-and-off for 25 years. Mostly to give the youth of his country communities good life lessons. To help build solid young people. 

Matt has spent the last 12 years writing over 500 articles for the online Footy Almanac, where he can more freely do pieces about the characters and unsung heroes of grass level sport and their communities. 

He doesn’t get paid for this, but it makes good people (and their loved ones), who normally don’t get a voice, happy.

Matt is married to Elena from Venezuela, and is aware that rhymes! He met her while living on a mountain in NE Tasmania. They have a wonderful, extroverted, life-loving ratbag of a 7yr old girl called Cielo. 

Cielo’s back yard consists of rainforest, waterfalls, remote shipwreck beaches, cultural trips to the city, both for Matt’s music friends and Elena’s Venezuelan community, and hanging out with him at work in the bush. 

But nothing is ever certain. Who knows what location or adventures next year will bring? 

Matt has a sister, Zo Damage, who is rough and ready and lives in the city, etching out a living as a photographer. A storewoman until her late 30s, she overcame many a mighty hurdle to establish a new life. She’s now doing so again, moving to New Zealand to get a doctorate in photography. 

Matt adores her work ethic and talent.