Phil Kafcaloudes

Phil Kafcaloudes an Australian author, university lecturer, and radio & TV journalist.

His first book, a text on journalism, was The ABC Guide to Court Reporting (ABC Books 1991) which is a standard text in many Australian university journalism courses. This was followed by a book of fivctionalized short stories based on court cases he had covered as a reporter: “The Chequered Lady” (Federation Press 1993).

His most recent book is Someone Else’s War, which tells a story of his maternal grandmother, Olga, who was a spy in Greece in World War Two.

His research for the book took him to Greece many times, and the war records office for the British government.

What he found was the story of a spy, saboteur, trained killer and rescuer.

The book was first published in 2011, and has gone into reprint. In 2012 it was picked up for the European market by Psichogios Publications for a Greek translation, which went into a second printing after 4 weeks.

As a broadcaster, Phil hosted the premier international radio program on Radio Australia, which broadcasted on FM across the Pacific and Asia. In 2007 he won an Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) award for his broadcast from Guangzhou in China (the ABC's first English language broadcast from mainland China), and was shortlisted for International Radio Personality of the 2007. The program also broadcasted from Singapore, Bali, Samoa, Malaysia and Cambodia, which involved working to crowds of thousands at the Water Festival in Phnom Penh.

He now teaches journalism at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and is working on a stage production based on Someone Else's War.