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Dr Alan Saunders, Presenter of Food Program, ABC
An award winning broadcaster and writer, Alan Saunders is host of The Comfort Zone, an ABC radio programme which debates and celebrates the cultural significance of food, design, architecture and landscape.
Born and educated in London, Alan Saunders has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Leicester and an M.Sc. in Logic and Scientific Method from the London School of Economics. He came to Australia in 1981 to pursue research at the History of Ideas Unit, Australian National University and was awarded his Ph.D. in 1989. In 1985 he was a Frances Yates Fellow of the Warburg Institute, University of London.
Alan Saunders joined the ABC Science Unit in 1987 and inaugurated The Food Program which was broadcast weekly until 1997 when he became presenter of The Comfort Zone. In 1998, The Comfort Zone was awarded the Adrian Ashton Award for architectural journalism by the New South Wales chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and in 1999 it won the Bates Smart Award of the Victorian chapter.
During 1991 Alan Saunders was co-presenter of Screen, Radio National's weekly program about film and television. He made frequent appearances on Livewire and worked on Meridian, a review of the humanities, from 1995 to 1997. He contributed film reviews to Radio National’s Breakfast Program from 1991 to 2000.
In 1993, Alan Saunders was a member of the judging panel of the Dendy Awards for Australian short films. He has chaired and addressed annual conferences of the Board of Film and Literature Classification and is a former Vice-President of the Film Critics' Circle of Australia.
Alan Saunders writes regularly on food for Good Weekend. He has been a columnist for the 'Good Living" supplement to The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin, City Weekly, Australian Way , The Australian Financial Review Magazine, Food Australia and Modern Times, and a record reviewer for New Woman. He has contributed to Vogue, Vogue Entertaining, The Australian, The Sydney Review, 21C, Twenty-Four House, Plenty, Cuisine, The Canberra Times, The Literary Review and The Times Literary Supplement. He has appeared at numerous writer’s festivals and twice been a speaker in the ABC 'World Series' debates.
In 1992, Alan Saunders was awarded the Geraldine Pascall Prize "in recognition of the distinguished contribution made by the recipient to the cultural life in Australia as a broadcaster and writer on the subject of food and/or wine."
Alan’s first book, A is for Apple, was published by Reed Books in 1995, and in 1999 he was the author of the extensive introduction to Australian Food: celebration of the new cuisine (Lansdowne Publishing). Alan Saunder's first novel, Alanna, will be published by Penguin in 2002.
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