A seventh generation Australian with a strong convict heritage, Doug Buckley was born in country New South Wales and grew up mainly in Broken Hill. As well as lecturing in engineering at universities in Australia, Japan and Europe from an academic base at the University of New South Wales, he has worked in research, planning, construction and economics within the engineering field. He and his English-born wife Rosemary have three children and twelve grandchildren. Doug has published long and short fiction, his unpublished novel, One Black Bureaucrat being short-listed for the ABC Bicentennial Literary Award.