Introducing Dr Cath Filmer Davies

Dr Cath Filmer-Davies works wonders with words. She is a writer, a broadcaster, a poet, a publisher, and an exciting public speaker.

Until October 2001, she was a senior lecturer in English at the University of Queensland. She is a popular public speaker and her seminars have always proved successful and effective.

She is a can-do person. She has realised many dreams and made many wonderful things happen.
Some examples?

• She thought a TVRO (satellite-tracking) station would be useful for language students at the University of Queensland. She called a meeting, toured Australia carrying out research, worked with committees and technicians and engineers, studied copyright law, and – the TVRO station now stands adjacent to the Joyce Ackroyd Building at that university.

• Having heard Welsh tenor Timothy Evans sing in 1992, she asked him then whether he would come to Australia if she could find a way to get him there. He agreed – neither one really believing it would happen. In 2000, Timothy Evans sang at four sellout concerts in Brisbane and Ipswich.

• Dreaming ten years ago, like so many people do, that it might be nice to write a book, Cath published her eighth book last year.

• Using words, and Christian prayer – another form of words – Cath has survived cancer after a brush with death in 1998 …

• … Which is why she decided to uproot and follow her dream to live and work in Wales. She now lives here.

She makes dreams into reality, and she makes words work.

She has made other things happen, too …

• Until October 2001, Cath was a Senior Lecturer in English at The University of Queensland. She came to academic life as a mature-aged student after working in a variety of occupations, including that of Registered Nurse.

• She completed her PhD in 1985 -- realising another dream—and has since published more than 200 book reviews, articles, short stories and features in the academic and popular press.

• She is the author or editor of seven books:
Eisteddfod: A Welsh Tradition in Australia (Seren Press 2001); Towards A Good Death: The Fantasy Fiction of C.S. Lewis (A Babel Handbook; Nimrod Press, 1999), The Victorian Fantasists: Essays on Culture, Society and Belief in the Mythopoeic Literature of the Victorian Age (London: Macmillan 1991); (this book won the International Mythopoeic Literature Society’s Inaugural Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies in 1992); Twentieth-Century Fantasists: Essays on Culture, Society and Belief in Twentieth-Century Fantasy Literature (London: Macmillan, 1992); (this book won the international Mythopoeic Society’s Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies in 1994); The Fiction of C.S. Lewis: Mask and Mirror (London: Macmillan 1993); (this book was twice shortlisted for the International Mythopoeic Society’s Award for Inklings Scholarship, 1994,1995); Scepticism and Hope in Twentieth-Century Fantasy Literature (Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992); (all these books were shortlisted for the 1994 awards of the International Mythopoeic Literature Society); and Fantasy Fiction and Welsh Myth: Literature: Tales of Belonging (London: Macmillan, 1996).

• She has been a Fellow of Hatfield College, Durham, UK (1988), the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at The University of Edinburgh (1990), and the University of Wales, Lampeter (1992). In 1983, she was awarded the prestigious Walter and Eliza Hall Travelling Scholarship for research at Oxford University. She has been a part-time staff member in the department of English at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and for five years, she had been invited to return annually to teach a unit in Australian Literature and to carry out research into Welsh mythology and contemporary Anglo-Welsh literature. She was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow in 1997.

• She speaks Welsh, and has been an enthusiastic campaigner for Welsh culture in Australia, earning an award in April 2001 from the Ipswich City Council, Australia, for her contribution to the Welsh heritage of the region.

• Cath has owned and operated her own PR, publishing and editing business for many years and has been a member of the Queensland Writers’ Centre since its inception, evaluating manuscripts for the centre and also privately, and working as a literary agent. She has been a copy editor and/or publisher’s reader for Northern Territory University Press, Macmillan (Basingstoke, UK), University of Queensland Press, Red Dragon Publishing and other boutique presses.

• In 1994, she was made an Honorary Life Fellow of the Mythopoeic Literature Society of Australia (which she founded in 1982), and has been a senior commissioning editor for Red Dragon Publishing. She has also edited an academic journal, The Journal of Myth, Fantasy and Romanticism. In 1995-96 she worked with the staff of the Queensland Medical Education Centre, using their research and material to rewrite and edit their book, Preparing Proper Doctors, launched in April 1996.

• Her seminars, developed over many years of research and practice, include Get Yourself Published, A Guide to Proofreading and Editing, A Guide to Self-Publishing, Winning Words and How to Get Along with People You Can’t Stand. All have been popular, effective and successful.

• As a public speaker, she has addressed corporate and political audiences, and has assisted others in public life to understand the principles of public speaking and the proven methods of attracting applause (‘the clap-trap’).

In short … Cath’s life has been involved with the use of words in personal and business life.
She is very glad to share this expertise with you.