MHM Social Club – Tom Ryan

Guest Speaker: Tom Ryan, Film Critic
“My Life as a Film Critic”.

Tom has been now writing for newspapers and magazines for more than 30 years. He was the film critic for The Sunday Age from its inception in 1989 until early in 2012 and has been a regular contributor to The Age’s arts pages for more than two decades.

In Australia over the years, his commentaries have also been published in magazines such as Lumiere and Cinema Papers, as well as on-line for Senses of Cinema. His work on film and the arts has also been published internationally in The Times Educational Supplement (UK), Movie (UK), Film Comment (USA) and Positif (France).

Born in country Victoria, he grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne and studied at Monash University before beginning his career as a teacher. He moved into tertiary education during the late 1970s, spending time at lecterns at Coburg and Melbourne State Colleges and Swinburne University, as well as at the Universities of Warwick and East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

He also has wide experience in broadcasting, hosting shows on community radio (3ZZZ and 3RRR) and working as a film critic for both 3AW (with Muriel Cooper and Derryn Hinch) and the ABC (with Ramona Koval, Lawrie Bruce, Virginia Trioli and Lindy Burns). He resigned from lecturing in 1999 to concentrate full-time on writing and other media work.