Garry Disher

Garry Disher is one of Australia’s best-known authors. He was born on a farm in South Australia, and decided in childhood to become a writer, influenced by a love of reading, his father’s original bedtime storytelling, and the isolation of farm life. He later gained a BA degree from Adelaide University, and worked and travelled widely in the UK, Europe and Africa after graduation. On his return to Australia he wrote a Masters thesis in Australian History at Monash University, in Victoria, but was also writing short stories for competitions and literary magazines, and on the strength of these was awarded a creative-writing fellowship to Stanford University. Back in Melbourne, Disher taught creative writing for many years, to supplement his writing income. In this time he published two novels, two short-story collections, three history textbooks and a writers’ handbooks. A full-time writer since 1988, he’s published over 40 books: general/literary novels, crime thrillers, story collections, fiction for children and teenagers, anthologies (as editor), creative writing handbooks and Australian History textbooks. Many of his children's and Young Adult titles continue to be studied in schools. The Bamboo Flute is regarded as a modern classic and has never been out of print, and The Divine Wind has sold over 100,000 copies in Australian and overseas editions. His crime novels are rapidly earning an international reputation, with editions published in the USA, England, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Hungary. He’s made two author tours of Germany, where he’s twice won a major crime fiction award, appeared on best-seller lists and been a guest of the Munich and Cologne writers’ festivals. In May 2009 he toured the USA, following rave reviews for the Challis and Destry crime novels and Chain of Evidence being listed as a best-book-of-the-year by Kirkus Reviews magazine. Garry Disher is in high demand for talks, workshops and festival appearances, and has been writer-in-residence at the University of Northumbria (UK), the State Library of Queensland and the Tasmanian Writers’ Union. Disher lives with his partner and their daughter on the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne.