In late March, A.J. Mackinnon, Australian author of the best-selling The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow, became the first writer in residence in the Pearl Jubilee College (PJC) at the University of Macau (UM). His seven-day stay at UM was filled with a series of interesting activities, including visits to local tourist attractions in the company of PJC students, participation in UM’s round-campus run competition, and of course, several sharing sessions with PJC students.

In his talks, he told the entranced students how, in 1998, the 35-year-old secondary school teacher that he was, suddenly decided to leave the school he had worked for six years to embark on an adventurous voyage alone, with a little boat that was laughably humble for the journey he was contemplating. He joked about how he was fit like a Greek god during the over one year of voyage that covered more than 4,900 kilometres, and how he set sail in that ridiculously unfit boat, leaving behind a customs officer with his jaw dropped on the shore. He recalled how a woman in France chased his boat on the shore for hours just to give him some wine and food because she was touched by Mackinnon’s adventurous spirit, and how, on most days when no such luck graced his journey, he performed magic tricks to passers-by so he could earn some money to buy food. He described his “near-death experience” where he was held at gunpoint and taken to a wood by a strange man who he at first assumed was a pirate but later turned out to be a Romanian plainclothes policeman. 

Mackinnon told the students that as with magic tricks, techniques are important for public speaking and storytelling, but the chief purpose of public speaking is not to show off the speaker’s knowledge or experiences, but to show the audience a beautiful world they haven’t been to.

During the farewell party PJC organised for him, the best-selling author concluded his stay at UM with yet another story, about how people in hell with a long ladle attached to their hand are starving together in front of a tableful of delicious food because they can’t reach the ladle to their mouth and how people in heaven faced with the same problem are enjoying the feast because they use the ladles to feed one another. He likened his seven-day stay in PJC to the heaven experience in the story, saying that in a way storytelling is like that, feeding one another the “best food” so the world can become a more beautiful place.

What kind of new adventure will Mackinnon embark on in the future? No one knows for sure. But one thing PJC students know for sure is that they are looking forward to the next writer in residence and can’t wait to enter an exciting new world the writer is going to take them to.


Should you have any enquiries about the information, please feel free to contact the Information Executives Ms.Lei or Ms Fok at（853）8397 4325 or  prs.media@um.edu.mo or visit UM webpage www.umac.mo.