About Margie Burke
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Margie Burke has spent her working life immersed in the world of books and publishing.
She coordinated four Sydney Writers’ Festivals, directed the literature program of Head’s Up – Australia Arts 100 for the centenary of Federation celebrations in London in 2000, managed the Australia Council’s Books Alive campaign, led a visiting international publishers’ program for the Australia Council, which successfully toured top publishers from around the globe to writers festivals across Australia. She also works as a teacher of literature and language, which has allowed her to share her passion for words, books, writers and reading to generations of young people in Australia and in China. Fluent in Mandarin, Ms Burke spent many years living in China where she worked in a range of arts and teaching positions. She grew up in a household of readers and writers at Mosman on Sydney’s lower north shore. Her father David is the author of more than 30 books on Antarctic history and steam train travel; her mother Helen was a Fairfax journalist and her younger sister Jane, writing as J C Burke, is the author of 10 novels including best-selling HSC text and Children’s Book Council award winner, The Story of Tom Brennan. Her cousin, pictured left with Margie, founded and directs the Ubud Festival. Her inspiration for writers festival tours stems from her combined passion for travel and literature, making for a wonderful opportunity for literature lovers to immerse in a week of books, ideas, conversation, enrichment and tranquility. |
Margie's Shanghai background
When Margie Burke first visited Shanghai in late 1986, bicycles outnumbered cars. It was a busy metropolis, petite bars were appearing along the plane-tree lined streets of the French quarter and there was no subway. Nescafe was ‘de rigeur’. The Arts and university life was rich and the Peace Hotel featured its ‘original’ jazz band. Pudong, now a formidable business district, was a muddy riverbank, accessed by ferry. The Bund, Shanghai’s iconic harbour front, still intact today, was as grand and beautiful as ever.
Shanghai became Margie’s home as an Australian Consulate General intern (Cultural Affairs), Fudan University student and, a few years later, newly-wed. Margie’s Chinese language blossomed having had an excellent grounding in the wintry far north eastern city of Harbin where she taught at Heilongjiang University (1986 – 1988). |
Later, 2008 – 2012, Margie lived with her teenage children, close to her local family, in the old Shanghainese water-town of Qibao. While teaching at an international school she was a regular attendee at the Shanghai International Literary Festival, enjoying luminaries such as Simon Sharma (The Power of Art), Amy Tan (playing in her band with Matt Groenig!), Emma Donoghue (Home), Guo Xiaollu (I Am China), Qiu Xialong (‘Detective Chen’ novels) Peter Hessler (Rivertown) among others. 
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