My opinion piece in Saturday’s Bendigo Advertiser. I’m sure bats are very nice when you get to know them.
View Article: ‘A tribute to women’: a Mothers’ Day plea to relocate the fernery’s bats
Publication: Bendigo Advertiser
Date Published: 10/05/2025
Pleased to receive great review from Steven Carroll in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
View Article: Saving Dragons Book Review
Publication: The Sydney Morning Herald
Date Published: 30/04/2025
I’m proud to introduce my latest book, Saving Dragons, probably the most gratifying project of my career.
Russell Jack, the visionary founder of the internationally renowned Golden Dragon Museum, spent his life breaking barriers and preserving the history of the Chinese Australian community. Growing up in the shadow of the White Australia Policy, he turned adversity into strength, using the vibrant traditions of Chinese dragon processions as a bridge between cultures. Through the power of storytelling and historical insight, Dempsey paints a vivid portrait of a man who replaced fear with knowledge and ignorance with beauty.
This compelling biography explores Jack’s humble beginnings, family legacy, athletic achievements, community leadership, and the extraordinary creation of the Golden Dragon Museum—a cultural institution that transformed Bendigo’s understanding of its Chinese heritage.
Told with verve, compassion, and illuminating vignettes, Saving Dragons offers a unique slice of Australian social history and a testament to the resilience of a Chinese community that has shaped the nation’s identity.
In Bendigo, Saving Dragons can be ordered from Bookish phone 5406 0596 or online via Australian Scholarly Publishing.
The subject of my latest review for THE AGE/SMH is Craig Silvey’s latest book, Runt.
It’s aimed at mid to late primary school-age children and features little Annie Shearer and her best friend, Runt, a scraggy wee dog who can do the most brilliant tricks.
It has an Enid Blyton happy ending and joyous illutrations by Sara Acton.
A pleasure to hold and behold, it’s a beautifully produced, hardback, chapter book.
View Article: Jasper Jones author delivers a darn good yarn of a different kind
Publication: The Age
Date Published: 21/10/2022
As memoirs go, Amaryllis Gacioppo’s first book Motherlands shows nothing of the current tendency of many writers to reveal a traumatic childhood – the more murder, mayhem and misery the better. Gacioppo takes an anthropological rather than a personal view of her life.
View Article: A journey into the past to find a place called home
Publication: The Age
Date Published: 09/09/2022
My latest book review to be published in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald.
View Article: Moriarty’s latest romp is an awkward family lunch to remember
Publication: The Age/SMH
Date Published: 10/09/2021
In which I share my hard-won wisdom on the subject of working from home.
The history of our involvement in overseas conflicts has been an inglorious one. But at least in the aftermath of the Vietnam War we had the decency to welcome refugees, as a recent program, Saving MG99 on the ABC’s Australia Story reminds us. A humane response to the refugees of Afghanistan remains in question.
View Article: We are defined by our humanity: How to leave a footprint
Publication: WR Law
Date Published: 31/08/2021
When the Vietnam War veterans returned home to Australia, neither the veterans nor their partners were aware of the atrocious psychological harm with which they had been afflicted. Post-traumatic stress disorder had not yet been recognised and as the men fell victim to terrible moods and illnesses, they capitulated to their pain and isolated themselves and their families.
With great courage and without recognition, veterans’ wives held their families together in the face of government and community indifference and did so for decades.
When He Came Home is a belated recognition of these women, and it also focuses on how the issues of PTSD and suicide affect veterans who participate in contemporary conflicts. Told within an informed historical context and employing intimate narrative interviews, this important book examines the unexamined: how so many families have been brought to their knees and how such suffering can be prevented.
To order your copy please email, order online or telephone Australian Scholarly Publishing PTY LTD.
7 Lt Lothian St North, North Melbourne Victoria 3051 AUSTRALIA
T: +61 3 9329 6963 E: contact@scholarly.info
This is confronting, important reading.
Steven Carroll
Saturday Age (Oct 16, 2021)
This book reminded me I should not take no for an answer when asking my veteran patients to bring their partners for initial assessments and at key points in their treatment. Finally, it is an essential recommendation for the partners, and children, of our veteran patients.
Dr Duncan Wallace
Consultant Psychiatrist, Contractor to Defence, Australian Defence Force Centre for Mental Health. Australasian Psychiatry
The lives of the veterans and their families have a ripple effect through the entire community. There are not many people in Australia who have not been affected by war at some point in time. This book needs to be read by us all including politicians and officers of DVA. I thank Dianne Dempsey for putting it together and the partners/spouses for their contributions.
Dr Gail MacDonell OAM
The Vietnam Veterans’ Newsletter: Official journal of the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia
Here is a book that does justice to the experience of our families. It is a book about what it was like for them when we came home. It relies on both quotes from many interviews and thorough research. The book is a perfect companion to The Long Shadow (Peter Yule) and is highly recommended.
Graham Walker, National Research Officer
Vietnam Veterans Federation
Thanks to women like Julie Oberin, government funding and services are edging more closely to a position where domestic violence prevention becomes a possibility rather than a futile dream. I was delighted when my former colleague Julie Oberin, received an AM for her dedication to saving women and children in crisis.