'We need to arm kids against it. Language is our greatest gift, very young children use it creatively, experimenting and having fun. But too often when they get to school, kids learn that language is a minefield. There are too many rules.'

His school, as yet unnamed - Greengate is a possibility - opened this month on his 1,000-acre property north of Melbourne.

Not that the word terror was the only reason he decided to open the school. There was also his observation that education was being hampered by poor morale among teachers. 'Teachers in Australia are suffering from poor levels of pay and low status and therefore we are getting fewer and fewer of the right standard entering the profession,' he said.

'When I read references for Year 12 students who want to go into teaching, the message seems to be that those who lack personality or are emotionally retarded are suitable for working with young children. We end up with some people who are less than ideal. If a society really wants to move ahead it should take the best and brightest to be teachers and transform society.'

Marsden had run writing workshops on his property for eight years but wanted to extend his range and influence. 'I had dreamed of this for a long time,' he said. 'I want a place where students can develop spiritually as well as academically, somewhere where they can get their hands dirty.'

Despite his admiration for many teachers, Marsden is generally critical of much of current teaching. 'Most teachers stifle creativity and fun. They plan and over plan and ask students to do the same. I don't believe in planning. Teachers are obsessed. Some writers plan but not many. Most stories work better by being allowed to shape themselves as they go along and find their own direction. To plan is to risk killing that process off and to turn writing from something alive to something cold and dead. Plus it takes the joy out of the whole process.'

Marsden wrote his own curriculum - which makes chess a compulsory subject - combining the best practice he had seen during his time as a teacher, and said he refused to be daunted by the mountain of paperwork and bureaucracy in his way.

'I want to engage young people and spend time with them on their journey of understanding. I want them to discuss the great issues and be all that they can be. I want them to be emotionally healthy and socially confident. I have stipulated that at least one lesson a day must be outdoors,' he said.

The school has opened with 50 students and four full-time teachers, including himself. 'I love teaching. It's the one thing I really regret about writing, that eventually the writing took over to the point that I had to leave teaching,' he said, adding that the style of learning was his primary focus. 'I want kids to get enough time to play.'

The Tye Estate school will take students up to Year 10 in small classes. That means students who want to do their Victorian Certificate of Education will, for the moment at least, have to go back into more conventional schools to complete Years 11 and 12. Marsden said he wanted his students to be able to cope with whatever came their way.

'That's the test of education that, after they graduate, they should be able to climb Everest, become a politician or poet or dentist or whatever they want to do,' he said.

'Their education should give them the solid foundation to enable them to do that. We may end up going to Year 12 but if we don't, then I would hope and expect that people who leave here would be able to cope with any other school setting and with whatever else life throws at them.'

Marsden was recently in Hong Kong on a tour of Asia and was the guest of booksellers Paddyfields as part of this year's Literary Festival, giving talks to teachers, parents and students.

He revealed his passion for writing and the English language remains as strong as ever despite his new career. He told how he couldn't concentrate on the rugby during a game at the last World Cup because of 'linguistic terrorism'.

'A boy was trying to tell his father a story but instead of listening, the man kept stopping the boy telling him that 'um' wasn't a real word. He wouldn't let him finish a sentence. This went on for so long, eventually the boy didn't speak for the rest of the game. I felt like leaning over and belting him. And anyway 'um' is a real word. It's in the dictionary, I looked it up.'

It was not until his early 30s that Marsden worried about such things. Before that he had a range of jobs that included working in an abattoir, hospitals, morgue and even a haunted house. Then, despite his training as a primary teacher, he found himself working as an English teacher in the Australian bush at Geelong Grammar School's outdoor education Timbertop campus which was attended by Prince Charles 40 years ago.

'Year Nine students spend a year away from their parents in a challenging environment bush walking, canoeing and running as well as taking regular lessons. I saw a real transformation in many of the kids there. It taught me just what teenagers are really capable of, given the right opportunities.' But he was concerned that many were less than enthusiastic about reading. 'I was disturbed that even though they were literate, the teenagers just didn't seem to even want to read. I soon realised that there was no material available that catered for their interests or even for their age group.'

His solution was to write something himself. During a three-week holiday he sat down and produced a powerful and moving tale set in a boarding school about a facially-disfigured 14-year-old girl who refused to speak. From the very start it was clear that Marsden's skilful characterisation and ability to plot formed the basis for success. His students loved the story and one girl was even moved to tears.

Like so many authors before him, Marsden discovered that being good and being published are often far from the same thing. 'I had started and edited a school magazine when I was in school myself in Grade Four and I enjoyed writing stories for my friends but I knew this was different. I sent my book to so many publishers and it was rejected time after time. But my friend was connected to a small publishing company and they gave me a break.' The result was his first novel, So Much to Tell You.

Although it might seem that Marsden now has competing interests for his attention, they are united by his love for language.

'The most important lesson you can teach is that language is a tool to take charge of. Students need to be its boss, shape it, mould it and reshape it. On a good day, teaching is the best job in the world,' he said.