Neil has written and published one book previously - he pitched One Got Past the Keeper at the Byron Bay Writers Festival in 2010, and the book - about a six-a-side football team's journey into fatherhood - a story of mateship and men's birth stories - was published by Hachette (Bernadette Foley) and launched at the same Writers Festival one year later (2011). Neil setup and operated a website, and weekly blog to support this book, as well as managing social media and Twitter accounts. He was interviewed by press and radio and invited to speak about the topic at a variety of events. Sales were good. The book was sold at airports, K-Mart, as well as all franchise and independent book shops where many signings were done.

Prior to writing One Got Past the Keeper, Neil was best known for being a contributing writer, then staff writer, for the cult sketch comedy TV show Life Support which was shown on SBS Television in the 2000s. Neil also co-wrote a comedy/variety TV show Cottage TV for the ABC which received support and funding for script development. He has also written award-winning short films, a collection of short stories (unpublished), other children's stories and a short play.

Neil has attended numerous Australian Writer's Centre (AWC) workshops including 'How to write for Children' with Pamela Freeman, 'Writing Workout' with Bernadette Foley and 'Pitching and Publishing'.

Neil was trained as an actor and has worked consistently over the last 20 years on stage in children's touring theatre, and in film and television. He has done lots of work inside animal suits (before CGI graphics) - dogs, a feral pig, a koala, etc. and knows what it's like to be in a gorilla suit in an aircraft-hanger full of tigers, monkeys, camels and every other type of animal you can think of! (Noah's Ark, 1999).