STEVE SAILAH
"I had a terrific 26 years with Aunty, during which time I was the ABC’s bureau chief in New Delhi and Washington. Along the way I was awarded two Walkleys for excellence in journalism"
I grew up in a working class family in Melbourne where, apart from being a paperboy, my first job as a teenager was recycling aluminium and steel in my uncle’s scrap metal yard. After leaving school in Year 12, I was a cadet reporter at the age of 18 on The Sun News-Pictorial in Melbourne.
At the age of 22 I took ship to Mexico, hitchhiked to Texas, bussed around South America, and finally settled in Costa Rica to study languages at the University in San Jose. After a year, all savings depleted, I went home to work as a radio journalist; first at Melbourne’s 3AW, then in London at LBC and Independent Radio News.
Home again, I joined the new Sydney station 2WS, then moved to the ABC in 1980. I had a terrific 26 years with Aunty, during which time I was the ABC’s bureau chief in New Delhi and Washington DC. Along the way I was awarded two Walkleys for excellence in journalism and a Master of Arts from Macquarie University.
My final position at the ABC was as executive producer of The World Today, and I left that some years ago to write full time, as well as indulge my passions for motorcycling, sailing, and being a dad to three daughters in Sydney. I’ve written two historical novels, A Fatal Tide published by Random House Australia in August 2014, and Killing Kitchener published by Amazon as an eBook and paperback in November 2017.
For a little more on my career, you might like to read this 2018 profile (below) published by my old school, Marcellin College:
