Murray ‘Muz’ Hartin grew up in the Northern NSW town of Moree and started his career in journalism at The Northern Daily Leader. The job came via a win in the inaugural Bush Poetry competition as part of the 1987 Tamworth Country Music Festival. Muz helped form The Naked Poets and the crew played to packed houses at the Tamworth Festival for 13 years. He moved to Manly in 1996 to try the poetry caper full-time and has somehow stayed afloat for 23 years with the penning of his poem Turbulence in 1998 playing a huge role in his survival in the crazy world of entertainment. Muz has lived in Sydney, Tamworth, Newcastle and Melbourne but is now back home in Moree on his late Dad’s 25-acre block, four miles from town. He travels Australia performing at conferences, sporting lunches, charity functions, drought relief events, country festivals as we as conducting poetry workshops for schools. He plays bad golf, gets a big kick out of cooking for friends and making a huge mess, loves watching most sports, loves his music, can’t sing to save himself but he reckons nothing beats catching up with mates. He’s also one of the best poets in Australia. He is the author of Fair Crack of the Whip (2019).
