A Kooma man from Cunamulla, Herb Wharton spent most of his life as a drover, stockman, labourer and now, a storyteller. Herb always has a pen to paper writing poems about the drovers, the station owners who thought they had settled the land, and the Aboriginal Dreaming tracks that preceded them by thousands of years, and entered some into the David Unaipon Award, though none were published the University of Queensland Press highly commended the Poems and offered Herb a contract to write a novel.

Unbranded released in 1992 launched his writing career going on to write, Cattle Camp (1994) and Where Ya’ Been, Mate? (1996) and an autobiography, Yumba Days (1999)

Herb has self-published a book of his poems called Kings with Empty Pockets.

Congratulations to Herb Wharton, winner of the 2012 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.