Author
Photo by Julie Langlands
Simon Higgins has tried a lot of jobs, having worked as a disc jockey, laboratory assistant, marketing manager and even monster in a side-show ghost train -which he still calls ‘the zenith of his employment history.’ He also spent a decade in law enforcement. As a police officer in the South Australian Police Department, Simon served in several different postings over almost nine years, including two and a half years spent as a prosecutor. During his career he rose to the rank of Senior Constable and earned two commendations, one for initiative in the field, one for quality of prosecution service. Leaving the police force, he became a licensed private investigator, with cases ranging from murders to alleged UFO incidents. Later in life, Simon returned to his first love -writing- and found that his earlier occupations provided inspiration. He spent much of his youth in various martial arts clubs in South Australia, studying initially Ju-Jitsu, then later Shotokan Karate and Kodakan Judo as well as Kendo and Iaido (both traditional sword arts) under Japanese instruction.
Firearms range, police academy, Fort Largs South Australia, 1986
Perhaps as a result of his long-term interest in traditional combat arts, Simon has developed an abiding respect for Asian cultures and has visited Japan, China and the Philippines as well as Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. He believes that the legitimate Asian martial arts, as taught by those who created them, are not intended to exemplify aggression -the way Hollywood action movies often do- but rather they are meant to be a process of skill building and self development…a physical form of meditation in which the only real competition is against one’s self.
Simon lives in the mountains of northern New South Wales and is proudly a student of Eishin-Ryu Iaido, taught on the Gold Coast in Queensland by Sensei Yasu Watanabe. Eishin Ryu is a 470 year old style of swordsmanship which prizes not only traditional techniques, but also medieval samurai etiquette and courtesy. Its members periodically compete in Iaido’s world titles in Kyoto, Japan, before His Imperial Highness, Prince Munenori Kaya.
Bushfire incident, Adelaide hills, during police career (from TV screen)
In 2007 Simon returned to Japan to train under ‘Kancho’ Glenn Stockwell, Seishinkan Iaido Dojo’s highest ranking instructor, who resides in Japan, and to participate in his first Kyoto ‘Taikai’ (contest). The event is held annually on a mountain top overlooking Kyoto, in a 1200 year old shrine surrounded by a forest of giant bamboo. At the age of 48, competing in the Dangai (beginners) class after less than a year’s training in Seishinkan Iaido Dojo, Simon placed in the top ten, a result he attributes to having ‘brilliant, patient teachers’.
SCUBA diving in kelp forest off Tasmania with friendly giant cuttlefish
Digital Memento: J-class submarine wreck dive, 2003
On returning home he also competed in the National Taikai held during the annual Australian Iaido Seminar in Queensland, as the most ‘junior’ member of a three-man Gold Coast team coached by Watanabe Sensei. Judging this contest were three important dignitaries from Japan: 10th Dan Hanshi (Master) Ashosai Fukushima Sensei, 9th Dan Hanshi and Souke (Headmaster and Style Guardian) of Eishin-Ryu Iaido, Ayosai Seimiya Sensei, and 8th Dan Iaido Federation CAO, Kenichiro Ikeda Sensei. In the presence of Stockwell Kancho and these high-ranking Japanese visitors, Simon was both honoured and delighted when the Gold Coast team, led by Nathan Nilsen, won the coveted Team Event gold medals. In 2008 Simon again competed in the Iaido world titles in Japan, this time placing 5th. At an Iaido grading held in 2009 he was awarded the rank of Shodan (Black Belt, First Degree) by masters representing the All Japan Iaido Federation.
Experiencing the Tea Ceremony for the first time in Momoyama Castle, Fushimi, Japan, in 1982. The gentlemen to Simon’s left was from New York, the man to his right from Paris. On the far left, wearing the winged mantle of a high retainer, sits Okada-Sensei, a performance swordsman who also hosted the event. He’s shown briefing the trio of foreigners on the ritual. Opposite him sits the Tea Master who conducted the actual ceremony.
‘Iaido,’ Simon observes, ‘is a beautiful, hypnotic art that clearly requires a life-long commitment. Sure, you can have a romance with it, which is in itself rewarding, but really, it’s meant to be a marriage. I expect to get the basics right in around… ten years.’
For more on this fascinating martial art, please visit www.seishinkan-iaido.org.
Signing books at Voices on the Coast Literary Festival, Queensland
Simon also likes science fiction movies and collecting traditional Asian art. His hobbies include SCUBA diving (he holds specialized Deep Diving & Wreck Diving Licenses) and restoring the rainforest on his family’s rural property. To relax, he plays guitar, writes poetry, and works on his ‘dodgy Japanese’ language skills.
A warm welcome to Kingaroy Queensland
He has been a popular speaker at writers’ festivals such as Byron Bay, Somerset, Brisbane, Woodford, the Sunshine Coast and Melbourne as well as festivals in places as diverse as Charters Towers (outback tropical Queensland) and Perth. He’s spoken in hundreds of schools across Australia, in both city and rural Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and also speaks at conferences for teachers and librarians.
Simon receiving team event gold medal, Australian National Iaido Taikai
As well as conducting Professional Development sessions for educators, Simon of course runs writing workshops for both kids and adults, plus does public readings of his work. Passionate about preserving literacy skills in the ‘way too visual 21st Century’ Simon is delighted that many of his novels are studied as class texts in schools and colleges throughout Australia and appear as excerpts in English textbooks.
Competitors & Judges, 2007 Australian National Iaido Taikai, Gold Coast, Queensland
He regularly demonstrates martial arts (with tie-in readings from his work) at literature festivals, but has also performed Iaido in bookstores, for sales conferences, and even at corporate conventions. ‘So I plan, one day, to eventually also do weddings, funerals, and bar-mitzvahs,’ he smiles. Simon’s meet-the-author talks for all ages are a lively, inspirational blend of personal adventure stories, creative writing techniques, and the hypnotic art of the sword.
In between takes
In late 2008, Simon had the thrill of appearing on Australia’s highest-rating children’s TV show, Saturday Disney, in a comic martial arts sequence about host Shae Brewster falling asleep and dreaming of becoming a ninja (after reading Moonshadow: Eye of the Beast…as you do). Shae wrote the script for the sequence, in which she awoke from her ‘kunoichi’ (ninja girl) fantasy to begin sword training with Simon (who, after proving a hard taskmaster, eventually used his eye of the beast shinobi power on her). Simon thoroughly enjoyed working with Shae: ‘Forget her clutzy on-screen image. Shae is a consummate professional. She’s warm, funny, quick-witted and very inventive!’ Filmed in a Japanese garden in Gosford, New South Wales, the roughly three minute segment took around five hours to shoot. To view the finished result, please visit the Cinema page.
Filming in Gosford: Shae gets a bokken
Launch of Tomodachi: The Edge of the World
A recent high point for Simon was the launch of his young adult samurai adventure, Tomodachi: The Edge of the World (Pulp Fiction Press) at the Brisbane Writers Festival. The author was delighted to introduce some surprise guests to the audience of students and adult readers…Iaido expert Doctor Yasu Watanabe, who launched the book, and the internationally successful Australian Seishinkan Iaido team, who celebrated the novel’s debut by demonstrating classical samurai duelling techniques to an appreciative crowd.
Another recent ‘great day at work’ for Simon was spending time at a literature festival alongside legendary film expert, author and reviewer David Stratton, co-host of At the Movieson the ABC. Simon and David enjoyed a mezmerizing dinner conversation full of anecdotes from David’s long-running relationship with Japanese cinema and particularly Akira Kurosawa, the iconic director of Seven Samurai, who David knew personally (and Simon has deeply admired since childhood). So naturally, Simon was (in his own words) ‘totally blown away’ when David slid across the table a copy of his fascinating memoirs with the hilarious title of I Peed on Fellini (Random House Australia), the book inscribed ‘To Simon, the eighth samurai.’
Simon’s take on the eminent Mr Stratton? ‘A true gentleman. I feel like I practically grew up on his insightful and passionate reviews of cinema from all around the world, and having finally met him, I have to say that David more than lives up to his reputation. His knowledge is encyclopedic, his love of film contagious and he tells -with singular charm and often dry wit- the best stories of mad moments with the mega-famous! I would utterly recommend his engrossing book to anyone who appreciates -or wants to better understand -the craft of film.’
Simon with fellow writer Alison Goodman at one of Alison’s famously fabulous birthday parties in Melbourne. Alison and Simon debuted together in 1998 at the Brisbane Writers Festival, each with their first published novel, Singing the Dogstar Blues for Alison and Doctor Id for Simon. They’ve been friends and supporters of each other’s careers ever since, and recently hosted the Aurealis fantasy awards together before an audience that included Her Excellency the Governor of Queensland. For more on Alison, check out her website at www.alisongoodman.com.au/. Simon muses, ‘We writers often rely heavily on encouragement and advice from our friends and colleagues. Alison is a versatile, multi-award winning writer, a gifted tactical thinker, and owns a wonderfully twisted sense of humor. So it’s no surprise to me that her work is now published globally.’ Simon had the honour of helping Alison train with swords as she prepared to write her acclaimed Asian fantasy epic The Two Pearls of Wisdom. So what kind of sparring partner did she turn out to be? ‘A quick learner…feisty…’ he smiles cautiously, ‘and not to be underestimated.’
The Raffles knows how to treat writers…
While visiting Singapore to teach in international schools, Simon planned a visit to the famous Raffles Hotel, a long-term hangout of celebrated authors. And why wouldn’t it be, when The Raffles boasts its own official ‘Writer’s Bar’? This legendary site has been the tropical watering hole of, among others, Robert A. Heinlein, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, James A. Michener, Noel Coward, W.Somerset Maugham and Gunter Grass.
But after hiking across Singapore to The Raffles, Simon and his wife Annie were stopped at the door. Staff politely explained that the Writers Bar was closed and, in any event, one needed long trousers (not shorts and hiking boots) to enter The Raffles. ‘Fair enough…but I’m a writer!’ Simon gently protested.
On hearing that, the concierge was fetched, and he ordered that the Writers Bar be specially opened and that the ‘visiting author and his wife’ be assigned their own personal barman - a charming guy called Mage (pronounced ‘mah-geh’). Coincidentally, his name matches the old Japanese word for the kind of hairstyle Simon sometimes wears (one of the ronin versions of the cho-mage, the samurai ‘tail’ or ‘top-knot’).
So the final outcome was a Singapore Sling or two, a wonderful experience for the visitors and a great reminder that in some parts of the world, being a published scribbler still commands enormous respect!
