William Randolph Marshall, better known as Billy Marshall Stoneking, was an American-Australian poet, playwright, filmmaker, and teacher. His son C.W. Stoneking is a musician.
Childhood and education
William Randolph Marshall was born in Orlando, Florida, on 31 August 1947. He was the second child of Charles and Florence Marshall. His sister, Barbara, named him "Randolph" after her favourite movie actor, Randolph Scott, and his mother selected "William" after an old family friend. The name "Stoneking" derives from his paternal great-grandfather, Reuben Stoneking. According to Stoneking's own biographical notes, his early years were spent growing up on military bases around the United States, including Randolph Field and Fort Slocum. When his father retired in 1961, the family moved to northern California where he attended high school in Folsom and Rancho Cordova, California. He graduated from California State University, Sacramento, in 1970, majoring in English with minors in philosophy and education. In 1972, Stoneking migrated to Australia. "The bumper stickers said, 'America, love it or leave it', so I left." In 1983, after more than a decade living in Australia, four years of which were spent living with tribal Aboriginal people 275 km west northwest of Alice Springs, Stoneking graduated from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney, specialising in screenwriting.
Career
Teaching
After Stoneking arrived in Australia in 1972, he worked for many years as a high school teacher. His ties to teaching and pedagogy motivated him to spend four years at Papunya Aboriginal Settlement in the Northern Territory, during which time he collected stories for use in a bilingual reading program. Between 2000 and 2007, he spent seven years teaching screenwriting at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.
Writing
Stoneking has published his poems in magazines around Australia, and was also active in the performance poetry movement, which included fellow poets Pi O, Amanda Stewart and Jas H. Duke. His poems have been featured in the Oxford Book of Australian Poetry and The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry. He was also the author of seven books, including Lasseter, In Quest of Gold, Singing the Snake: Poems from the Western Desert 1979–1988 and an autobiography: Taking America Out of the Boy.
Screenplays
In 1982 Stoneking entered the full-time screenwriting program of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Stoneking's first films were made in the mid-1980s, including a chronicle of his work at Papunya Aboriginal Settlement, Desert Stories. He also edited many television scripts, and was the co-creator/writer of Stringer, the AFI award-winning drama series. He also wrote a script for one of the episodes of, which was broadcast during that show's two year revival. He also penned the full-length stage playSixteen Words for Water.
Stoneking was a teacher of dramatic writing. His "Drama of Screenwriting" workshop has been held in every capital city in Australia and New Zealand. He was one of the script editors on the AFI-nominated Australian feature Chopper. Stoneking produced a number of small films, including Nosepeg's Movie and Jelly's Placenta. He was the executive producer of the documentary Gayby Baby.
Selected bibliography
;Poetry collections
Ear Ink: Poems.
Singing the Snake: Poems from the Western Desert 1979–1988.
