Jim Anderson

Who is Jim Anderson?

Jim Anderson is a British-Australian editor and novelist. He edited Oz Magazine and later wrote the book Billarooby.

Anderson was born in Haverhill, Suffolk, but his family emigrated to Australia when he was one year old. This was due to his father having a dispute with his own father, with whom he never reconciled. They moved to Orange, New South Wales and then to Warwick, a small town near Cowra on the Lachlan River where his family had a vegetable farm. The farm became unworkable in the 1940s due to the river drying up in a prolonged drought and at this time he helped his father trapping rabbits for food. In Sydney he studied law at the University of Sydney while also working at the Attorney General's Department.

Anderson joined Oz in 1969. In 1971, he was prosecuted in London, along with fellow Oz editors Felix Dennis and Richard Neville for Oz number 28, "the Schoolkids Issue". His book, Billarooby, was published in 1988. Told from the view of a 12 year old boy, it explored themes of relationships of the boy with his father and a male teacher who falls in love with his father. Anderson also edited Neville's 1995 memoir Hippie, Hippie Shake.