HOUSE RULES

James Mengel is the pen name of Ian Dorricott (born 1949), who for forty years has been Australia’s leading writer of secondary school music texts and composer of school musicals. (The pen name is meant to distinguish his fictional from his non-fictional works.) The author’s large educational and theatrical output includes ‘Listen to the Music’, published by Cengage Learning, the most widely-used music text in Australasia, and Man of Steel, published and distributed by Maverick Musicals, the most performed musical in Australian schools. (See the article on him in Wikipedia for further details.) ‘House Rules’ is his first fictional work.

 

James’s interests include languages (he speaks English, German, French and Russian), literature, musicals, fitness, world cinema and travelling. He has visited over 70 countries to date, with many more planned for the future. He has been a passionate member of Couchsurfing since 2007 and has hosted hundreds of guests at his Brisbane home; he has also couchsurfed in Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Russia. Couchsurfing has enabled him to build up a international network of friends, many of whom he is still in contact with today. As you will read, ‘House Rules’ incorporates many elements of James’s interests and couch surfing experiences.

 

Links

 

Ian´s Couchsurfing page: www.couchsurfing.com/people/dorricovsky

Wikipedia article: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Dorricott

Ian’s travel blogs: dorricovsky.blogspot.com.au

Maverick Musicals: maverickmusicals.com

Cengage Learning: cengage.com.au