A novel. Self-publication, subject of an ABC Four Corners programme with Michael Charlton. All major Australian newspapers reviewed this book. P. R. "Inky" Stevenson, literary critic, wrote "Kosti Simons is the first Australian novelist to compare in style and power with Hemingway and Faulkner."

Despite excellent reviews the novel was revised – see 2018 "NOT WITH A KISS"

"Downfall" is a one-act play which won the Townsville Centenary Playwrighting award, which was adjudicated by John Trevor of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. The plot revolves around three men in a lonely house on a gibber plain in Central Australia. The plain is desolate and treeless, when in a succession of nights gibbers fall on the corrugated-iron roof. Incredulity gives way to unbelief and even fear as they grapple with a phenomenon completely beyond their ken. They are the only humans within a hundred kilometres, nothing exists that is capable of throwing gibber-stones onto the roof, no willy-willys to carry them up there, so what in heaven's name is it? This leads to disputation that is finally not quite resolved.

3-Act Play. Production staged at the Old Tote Theatre, Kensington, Sydney, as a play-reading with professional actors. Directed by Robin Lovejoy.

This play revolves around a colourful man who is a newspaper editor. The character devolved from a journalist who sailed with the author on a Sydney-Hobart yacht race. Kosti and he rarely saw eye to eye. It happened that tensions were high in a gale of wind off Tasmania, and the author went into the galley for some Christmas cake made by his mother. No one slept and so he offered the cake to the crew. "Yes, but I'll have some of mine," our friend said. Yours truly replied: "If you want Christmas cake, this is it." Whereupon our friend sprang up, grabbed the knife from Kosti, jabbed it into his stomach, and said: "I ought to run you through with this." The daughter of the journalist later married an Australian Prime Minister.

Published in literary magazine, 'Southerly' as a short story. The yellow truck comes ashore from a 200-ton coaster in the swamplands of the Fly River Delta. It is rafted ashore on a range of empty oil drums, a precarious voyage for a long-awaited addition to a primitive bush hospital. The local people have been swept into this area by stronger tribes in the mountains, they are not only prone to malarial mosquitoes, but also man-sized crocodiles. They are the meat in a dangerous sandwich.

And somehow the truck becomes a magic object of what the white man can do for the locals, but nature and other circumstances demonstrate that technology is not always supreme. Symbolism plays an important role in the unfolding of this tale, but it is set in an exotic jungle setting well-known to the author who spent some of his young life threading the extensive waterways of the Delta as mate of the coaster described in the story.

A 2-act play. A production of this play was staged at the famous Independent Theatre, North Sydney, founded by Doris Fitton. It was chosen by a panel for a play-reading to encourage would-be playwrights. Many of Sydney's best professional actors gave of their time voluntarily, and the play was directed by John Trevor of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust.

"Cage with Flies" is essentially an adaptation of the novel "Not With a Kiss" which is reviewed elsewhere here, but was a critical success as a novel, having been reviewed by every major newspaper in Australia. A copy of reviews is available to interested parties.

While the play was performed before a packed house, after curtain-fall a critic from Sydney's Daily Telegraph had been asked to voice his opinion from the stage, and the playwright was asked to be with him to defend his work. The critic did not like the play and the playwright was too embarrassed to find the right words.

participation in hour-long documentary on the Pilgrim's Road to Santiago de Compostella. As a re-born Christian (not new-born) Kosti Simons decided to walk the Pilgrim's Road from Paris to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. While his wife and daughter went to Australia, he decided to do this barefoot. It took 111 days. It was difficult but when it was over, he knew it was a transforming experience. There had to be total dependence on God. Simple as that.

On completion he realised that many potential pilgrims would be deterred because of language problems, so he decided to found "Pilgrim's International", a non-profit organisation with the express purpose of fomenting interest in walking pilgrimage.

For three years subsequently Kosti lead three groups (from 15-20) from the French border to Santiago, a 40 day walk. He and his wife also lead groups from London to Canterury, and from Glasgow to Iona.

Santiago pilgrims call out "Ultreya!!" in the Basque language, which means "Forward!" In 1983 probably about 500 pilgrims asked for a Compostellana or Certificate of Completion in the great cathedral in Santiago -- in 2018 an almost unbelievable 250,000 walking pilgrims arrived there!

An annual Passion Play (i.e. a dramatic rendition of the life and death and life of Jesus Christ) with various directors, staged at the only purpose-built venue in Australia which was designed and supervised by Kosti. Also produced in Ipswich and Springfield, Brisbane. See www.moogerahpassionplay.org.au

Back in 1990 Kosti Simons had a call from the Lord to found a Passion Play in Australia, so after twenty-one years overseas he returned with his family to Ipswich, Queensland, his wife's hometown. He had seen a star called Venus, and it was under that star that he found the perfect site by mountain and lake. Kosti wrote the script, and he made sure that all the words spoken by Christ were from the Bible. Naturalism was the order of the day on the site, and authenticity in the play.

A group of sixty men, women and children were gathered, and the first performance was held in 1993. With the exception of two lay years, performances have been held at the site each Easter, with from two to three thousands attending. The Play has become an icon in South-East Queensland and beyond. Entry is free.

A two-act comedy with a cast of eight deals with the question of euthanasia. The play is set in the future outside a "clinic" which is a government-appointed institution to process those who are tired of life. At the start the clinic has not yet opened. Some of those in the queue are not even sure why they are there, all of them have to be interviewed by the resident psychiatrists. They range from a young Irish girl who is pregnant to a soldier who has lost his legs. Alongside the clinic is a café and the singing waiter provides a link to the individuals and also to the psychiatrists who haul them in one by one. The play has a surprise ending. The play has not been staged.

This 3-Act play was written for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Based on an actual event, a square-rigger left Melbourne to sail for Perth to pick up a cargo of jarrah timber. However, after beating into adverse winds for six weeks, she found herself down near Macquarie Island, which is on the same longitude as Melbourne. The skipper decides to sail around the world. On board are a motley crew of seamen, many having signed on because of the Kalgoorlie gold rush. On discovering they have to sail the "Roaring Forties" around Good Hope and Cape Horn, they become mutinous. A chest of gold in the Captain's cabin complicates the plot.

Conclusions are forced onto the officers and men with the running of an "Olympic Games" on board as they cross the Indian Ocean.

A cast of thirteen ensures high production costs. Designed to celebrate Australia's maritime history in a proscenium theatre, or (better) on the deck of a ship in a maritime museum. It is hoped the play will find a place in Australia for the next Olympic Games.

A 3-Act comedy in which three sides of a man's personality are displayed. They are portrayed by a single actor.
The first persona is Reginald Pullover, a mild but harmless pervert, the second a market gardener who loses his daughter in a tragic accident, the third a bumptious politician who is never quite sure on which side his bread is buttered. Loudspeakers abound around the theatre, and the characters dialogue with the voices that emanate from them. At the back of the theatre a row of loudspeakers emanate from time to time the basso profundo words of God.

The role demands an exceptional actor.

To depict oppressive officialdom, bureaucracy, big brother, etc., three mute policemen dance balletically onto the stage from time to time.

Unsurprisingly this play has not been staged.

The chief protagonists of "The Kunai Country" are Cliff Grey, Graham Dean and the kunai-covered highlands of New Guinea. They interact, one on the other.

The action takes place in the 50's of last century. Cliff Gray is a twentyish man when he wins with his partner a block of land near Karawi – he is as young as the geological clay on which he settles, and as ready to be developed. Graham Dean is older, with that solidarity and self-containment so vital to an existence in the wilderness. Over the partners broods forever the mountain range of the Okapa, black in the sunlight, permeating the lives of those who live in its shadow. The always fatal "laughing death" disease, called kuru, is endemic in the Okapa: the spirit of this laughing madness seems to extend as far as the little white community of Karawi, the government outpost. When the partnership splits in a conflict of personality, and Graham leaves the country, Cliff is the local outcast. The years of his aloneness are on him.

Briefly Cliff meets Smithy, a Christian who believes all mankind must be able to read the Bible in their own language. She is a linguist who works in the Okapa, but her forthright fundamentalism appals him.

Later Cliff works on the Wawiwa Pass with his tractor and a few hundred "calaboose" natives, and becomes aware he is "going kanaka". Only when rival factions amongst the "calaboose" start a riot, does he waken. The focal point of the riot is a hulking kanaka, by name Rubbis, who is beaten to death. Cliff, somehow identifying himself with Rubbis, is clubbed into insensibility. He is flown out to Lae.

Lae divorces him from the darkness which he has known so long - a new life and love come to him. He meets again Smithy.

Graham arrives in Lae, intending to pioneer the road to Karawi in an old Jeep. The rains close out Karawi airstrip, so Cliff and Smithy go with him. The Sensa River is the major obstacle: a torrent in the lee of the mountain barrier, it changes the course of three lives. It provides an essay in self recognition. Their interdependence is made manifest.

Yet the Okapa is not yet done with them: in the final pages of the book it claims a victim - for in the Okapa we see an atavistic battleground, we see the age-old fight of man to lay claim to his own soul.

Autobiography. A true story of four emigrations by a single family covering three continents, six countries and the islands of Papua New Guinea. In many ways they embody the 20th century migrant experience. For the author a search for a material Holy Grail that very much ends in a search for meaning, a search for God. Thus the book is in the style of Victor Frankl or C.S. Lewis: it spans 82 years.

The Simons family was caught in Holland during the tumult of the Great Depression and migrated to Africa, where the subsequent war was far away, but its effect close and personal. For detail, please scroll down to "About the Author".

The book depicts an exceptional love story.

The mainspring of this autobiography, and its justification, has been a lifelong search for the spiritual dimension to life. While always at least a nominal Protestant, at age fifty the author underwent an epiphany at a Catholic Marian shrine in Lourdes, France. This sets the tone for the second part of this memoir, with visits to Vietnam and Russia and particularly Israel providing a fitting climax to his story. The writer has taken advantage of his playwrighting experience to write dialogue emanating from the Lord Jesus Christ. The justification for this book hinges on the relationship the author has with Jesus Christ, and he hopes this love will manifest to the reader so that his/her faith is increased....

This novel was self-published in 1962 to critical acclaim but revised in 2018. Set in inner suburban Sydney in the 50s, we meet Ava King at the climax of his life. On the verge of a mental breakdown, he must face events that isolate him from his fellows. Yet through him is expressed a universal theme--that man's spirit remains forever indomitable no matter the adversity.

Gradually we see the threads of his life drawn up and woven together. We meet his cold, estranged wife: his son, whose involvement in a tragic killing is both the result and manifestation of a secret guilt gnawing at the father's mind. And we meet the two women who help to resolve the guilt of father and son -- the lover with whom both seek physical escape, and the gentle deaconess who is the embodiment of Christian love.

Sydney in the 50s is lovingly described, and "Mr Eternity" plays a small part in the plot, but essentially it is the story of a man who journeys from being a Rat in Tobruk to being a new man in Newtown, Sydney.