Trudi Canavan | |
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Born |
Kew, Melbourne, Australia |
23 October 1969
Occupation | Author/Graphic designer |
Trudi Canavan (born 23 October 1969) is an Australian writer of fantasy novels, best known for her best-selling fantasy trilogies The Black Magician trilogy and Age of the Five. While establishing her writing career she worked as a graphic designer. She completed her third trilogy, The Traitor Spy trilogy, in August 2012 with The Traitor Queen. After this Canavan will be writing a new trilogy on a completely new world called Millennium’s Rule and will consist of multiple worlds which characters can cross between.
Canavan was born in Kew, in Melbourne, Australia and grew up in the suburb of Ferntree Gully. From early in her childhood she was creative and interested in art, writing and music. After deciding to become a professional artist she completed an Advanced Certificate in Promotional Display at the Melbourne College of Decoration, where she received an award for Highest Aggregate Mark in Art Subjects in 1988.
In 1995 Canavan started The Telltale Art, a freelance business specialising on graphical design services. In that same year she began working for Aurealis, a magazine of Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction, working a do-it-all job as art and cover editor, reading manuscripts, creating web pages and stuffing envelopes. By taking on this job she was able to start writing in her spare time. Canavan states that until the age of 25 she dreamed of writing a novel but lacked the focus to do so. When she turned 25 she took several writing courses, worked on refining her fiction writing skills, while she fought her way through several rejections.
In 1999, Canavan's writing career took off when she won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story with Whispers of the Mist Children. In 2001, she further established herself with The Magicians' Guild, centring on Sonea, a slum child who is hunted for her rogue magic. The novel, which was the first of three books of The Black Magician Trilogy, brought her widespread acclaim, and the second book of the trilogy, The Novice (2002), was nominated for the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel. The third book, The High Lord, was released in January 2003 and was nominated for the Best Novel Ditmar category. All three books entered Australian top ten SF best-seller lists. The trilogy is now rated by Nielsen BookScan as the most successful debut fantasy series of the last 10 years, and in 2006 had sold over 275,000 copies in all editions. The trilogy has been translated into German, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Czech, Danish and French.