Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) resident poet, David Gilbey, will spend five months on a “journey of discovery” as part of his study leave to complete his first full volume of poetry. “There is an ancient connection between travelling and writing,” says David, who is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at CSU’s Wagga Wagga Campus and the founding president of Wagga Wagga Writers Writers group. David begins his international sojourn next week in Paris and the Loire Valley in France before travelling to the University of Montana, USA, where he will be featured at the Montana Festival of the Book in late September. He will also read his poetry at seminars in Wales, Ireland, the Robert Menzies Centre in the UK, Shanghai in China and at Sendai in northern Japan, where David was visiting Professor of English at Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College in 2000.