As a student, ‘west coaster’ Rick Snell took a different path from his peers — now he’s back home

Rick Snell is the first to admit he is far from a typical “west coaster”, despite growing up in the Tasmanian mining town of Queenstown.

“I loved to read, and that kind of stood me out from nearly everyone else … most of my contemporaries had either never read a book or prided themselves on not reading,” he laughs.

“Growing up with your mates, it’s all about drinking, swearing, rough play, so it wasn’t about sensitivity or emotions … I probably wouldn’t have ever confessed to anyone that I was emotionally moved by a poem.

“You could listen to AC/DC or dance to American Pie, that was fine. Expressing the poetry that was associated with that would have been a whole different ball game.”

While he loved school, Rick says by the time he was…