Thomas Keneally Schepisi's "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" (1978) (based on his own novel) and played Father Marshall in the award-winning film "The Devil's Playground" (1976), also by Schepisi. In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure. Keneally was a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council from 1985 to 1988 and President of the National Book Council from 1985 to 1989. Keneally was a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where he taught the graduate fiction workshop for one quarter in 1985. From 1991 to
Thomas Keneally He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist and was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). His father, Edmund Thomas Keneally, flew for the RAAF in World War II, then returned to work in a small business in Sydney. Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. Kenneally's first story was published in the "Bulletin" magazine in 1962 under the pseudonym Bernard Coyle. By February 2014, he had written over 50