Harry Kolotas was born in London to Greek Cypriot parents, spent much of his childhood in Glasgow where his father owned at various times an ice cream van, a café and a fish and chip shop. It was the happiest point of Harry’s life due to the unfettered access to a smorgasbord of confectionery. From this paradise of chocolates, boiled sweeties and salty, deep-fried snacks he was, like Macduff, untimely ripped at age fourteen when his family migrated to Sydney, Australia.
His loyalties are not so much divided as spread-eagled over several cultures. A sense of belonging anywhere has eluded him. He doesn’t have a fear of The Other; wherever he happens to be he feels like he is The Other.
Harry has been writing since the 1980s when he was a regular columnist for RAM, the national music magazine. In the 1990s he moved on to a monthly humorous column, ‘A Father’s Diary’ for Sydney’s Child magazine. By the turn of this century he was a washed-up literary hack ghost-writing greetings cards and dead people’s eulogies, whilst drinking heavily to forget (mostly milkshakes).
In 2014 his writing career was rehabilitated thanks to a six-part series of his humorous monologues commissioned by radio station HHH through a Community Broadcasting Assoc. grant. From there on, the sky has been the limit with several of his monologues selected for performance at Little Fiction events staged by publishers Spineless Wonders and later aired on various community radio stations and podcasted. Five of his one-act plays have won awards or been short-listed in Australia and the UK. He won the 2019 Noosa One-Act Playwriting Competition with his play “Look What The Cat Dragged In,” and was awarded the $5000 Eleanor Nimmo first prize. His play, “Pissoirs Of Provincial France” was shortlisted in the 2022 Noosa One-Act Playwriting Competition.
To check out Harry’s plays, click here.
