
David Burton is a writer from Brisbane, Queensland. He’s the author of over thirty professionally produced plays, two acclaimed books, and has been a core part of some of Australia's most innovative theatrical projects. He’s also a Dad and has a doctorate in community-engaged theatre, and his weekly blog has hundreds of loyal readers. In 2024, he was short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award.
In 2014, he won the Text Prize for Children and Young Adults' Writing for his memoir How to be Happy, published in 2015. He followed this up with the 2019 release of the young adult mystery novel The Man In The Water. David is also known for his award-winning theatrical work, including April's Fool, a verbatim play concerning illicit teenage drug use, published by Playlab Press. In 2016, his work St. Mary's in Exile premiered as part of the 2016 Queensland Theatre Company MainStage season. He’s gone on to write and direct Queensland Music Festival’s signature community works, including The Power Within (2017, in partnership with the Isaac Regional Council) and The Mount Isa Blast (2019, in partnership with the Mount Isa City Council).
David obtained his doctorate in 2021. He continues to write theatre-in-education touring pieces of the Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe. He is a qualified and practising counsellor and coach.
TALKS
Help! I'm a teenager!
This talk builds off David's inspirational story of growing up, utilising some of the latest research in psychology to provide listeners with key insights into navigating some of the most turbulent times of life. Talk is shaped in collaboration with intended audience, and can include: sexual identity, mental health, depression, anxiety, neurodivergence, family relationship ,academic pressures. Funny, moving and helpful exploration of adolescence.
Unleashing Creativity
David has created a living out of channeling his creativity. In this talk, suitable for all ages, David talks through the most common hurdles for anyone’s creative spark: self-doubt, no ideas, lack of motivation and more. This is a talk designed to get even the most reluctant artist enthusiastic about exploring the imagination.
How to Write a Play
Taking lessons from Shakespeare, Brecht and Marvel and Disney films, David unpacks the crucial elements for any dramatic story. With a crash course in structure, character, dialogue and theatricality, this is an essential talk for any drama student.
WORKSHOPS
Introduction to Verbatim Theatre
David is the author of several award-winning verbatim theatre works and is one of the leading verbatim theatre practitioners in the country. This workshops takes students through formulating interview questions, interview technique, data collection, editing and staging.
Mental Hygiene
As a qualified coach and counsellor, David can provide practical skills and exercises in navigating burnout, motivation and anxiety.This workshop provides students with rich resources and a suite of practical tips for painting mental wellbeing.
Testimonials
David has a great ability to connect with students and keep them motivated. His use of music to inspire writing is so good and the students loved it! Some classes that had a large number of reluctant writers ALL came out with a story at the end of his workshop. That is amazing!
Morayfield State High School - May, 2025David catered for our audience well. He was engaging and entertaining. The students have provided feedback expressing their enjoyment of the visit.
Palmview State Secondary College - August, 2023We recently held a Literature & Arts Festival at St. Catherine's Catholic College, The Whitsundays for our Secondary students. All the authors that attended were entertaining, engaging and inspiring. I have had so much positive feedback from students, staff and library colleagues. The students have all been raving about how excellent the festival was, and they were disappointed at the thought of returning to classes for the rest of the week. I have had reluctant readers coming into the library to borrow books, more students are writing stories. I would definitely recommend David Burton, Josh Donellan, Kathy Hoopmann, James Moloney, Giulio Saggin, and Edwina Shaw to anyone looking at having authors present for their Secondary students.
St Catherine's Catholic College Literature and Arts Festival - May 2018Your keynote presentation and the way you interacted with the students was outstanding and I was so pleased with what you did on the day. Wonderful! We cannot wait to buy your book!
It is not easy to put together an event such as this and with your support and help it was extremely successful.
David Burton - Positive Leadership Student Conference, Aquinas College, May, 2015.Dave Burton was fantastic! We received very positive feedback about Dave’s talk, and the question and answer session. He was very inspirational.
David Burton - Gold Coast City Council, Writer

The Man in the Water

How To Be Happy

April's Fool

Lazarus Won't Get Out of Bed
Queensland
Speaker type
- Author
- Motivational
- Playwright
Audience
- Year 7-9
- Year 10-12
- Adult
Links
Featured Speakers
Stop Press

Learn the secrets of writing great stories from an award-winning author.
Write Like an Author is a school holiday program for young writers.
Held in a fun and supportive setting at Brisbane Boys College, this camp will see children develop and write stories with help from award-winning author Brian Falkner, author of 21 books including Northwood, Shooting Stars and the Katipo Joe series.
The camp will be held during the school holidays, 20-22 January. Three-day camp ages 9-14, plus a one-day workshop ages 7-10.
Young writers will learn:
- How to come up with story ideas
- How to plan and outline a story
- How to develop interesting characters
- The writing process
Plus they will make new friends and have lots of fun!
Young writers (or their parents) can register here:
Register herePlaces are strictly limited, so register early.
New Releases See all books
Touring Speakers See all tour dates
| Speaker | Location | Tour dates | Book now |
|---|---|---|---|
Brisbane | 04 Mar - 06 Mar 2026 | ||
Cairns | 09 Mar - 12 Mar 2026 | ||
Brisbane / Sunshine Coast | 09 Mar - 09 Mar 2026 | ||
Brisbane | 27 Apr - 29 Apr 2026 | ||
Brisbane | 27 Apr - 27 Apr 2026 |
What people are saying
Sophie was brilliant, informative, tailored to meet what the kids were doing, exploring in class. The writers workshop was also great, kids got a lot out of it and are enthusiastic to write and have their work shared with others. Really enjoyable.
Mark presented to our Lower Primary students and his sessions were brilliant, from start to finish. Each presentation was tailored perfectly to the age group, full of rhyming fun, songs and hitting many important literacy targets along the way. The teachers were thrilled and the children left wanting to devour his books. I would highly recommend Mark to other schools.
Siggo shared what it's like to work as a professional illustrator and gave students a step-by-step look at how characters are created-from loose sketches to fully expressive drawings. He had the kids laughing, thinking, and most importantly, drawing. Every pupil got involved, and the results were amazing. Students explored how to show emotion through facial features, played with proportions, and even created their own original characters. The excitement and focus in the room was a joy to see.
Chris was animated, he talked about his experiences as a young immigrant and challenges he faced. I sent him the Unit task sheet, and he explained points of view, settings, themes and characters. Chris was asked a question about AI, and he said that AI isn’t emotive and he talked about writing from the heart. I believe the students received valuable content that will assist them in their writing task.
Michael Salmon’s session today was absolutely awesome – a very entertaining and engaging online session! The children drew some wonderful dinosaurs and Michael kept them engaged and interested throughout the session and he was very inspiring and encouraging to all the attendees, it was really wonderful!
Victoria was very well organised and an engaging speaker. She ensured that her presentation took into consideration the upcoming assessment task for the students by using one of her stories as a framework. The workshop activity was well structured and the students enjoyed the writing exercises. She generously gave prizes and this was very well received.
Vikki is engaging and inspirational. She filled the children with enthusiasm and wonder, helping them to think in new ways. She connected her own childhood with her writing, inspiring the children to use their personal experiences in creative ways.
I have been very lucky to have Lorraine come to 6 of my little regional schools to take poetry workshops. As a mobile library teacher my role is to teach students the many wonders of literature and hopefully as a consequence instil a love of reading. Lorraine has been a wonderful addition to my program. Lorraine comes with a lifetime of knowledge and several bags of resources! She shares her own wonderful work with classes and has a myriad of simple, achievable poetry techniques to inspire the [...]
We have engaged Shane here at Hale on numerous occasions. He is a highly entertaining guest speaker who has a genuine and authentic approach with the students. His story is unique and he shares that intertwined with his professional milestones that creates a highly captivating session. He can communicate with kids of all ages and adults alike.
So wonderful. Really appreciated her insight. Positive feedback from all staff and students involved.
Engaging for all students, empowering them to know that they can in fact write poetry. Teacher - "I hated having to teach poetry, but now I see the purpose of it in performance and how much fun can be had with it."
The Narrative Workshops in Year 3/4 conducted by Chrissy Byers were extremely rewarding for students. They were well run and made efficient use of time. The visual prompts used were engaging and made it possible for the students to clearly structure a narrative into beginning, middle and end. To make the writing more interesting and individual, Chrissy endorsed the use of a Hook Question. Most importantly, over the weeks, there was a clear improvement in the outcomes of the children's writin [...]
