About the Author
The basic blurb on the back of the book tells us this:
Garth Nix was born in 1963 in Melbourne, Australia, to the sound of the Salvation Army band outside playing "Hail the Conquering Hero Comes" or possibly "Roll Out the Barrel." Garth left Melbourne at an early age for Canberra (the federal capital) and stayed there until he was nineteen, when he left to drive around the UK in a beat-up Austin with a trunk full of books and a Silver Reed typewriter.
Despite a wheel literally falling off the Austin, Garth survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. Adter finishing his degree in 1986, he worked in a bokshop, then as a book publicist, a publisher's sales representative, and an editor. Along the way he was also a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve serving in an Assault Pioneer platoon for four years. Garth left publishing to work as a public-relations and marketing consultan from 1994 to 1997, till he became a full-time writer in 1998, He did that for a year before becoming a part-time literary agent in 1999. In January 2002 Garth went back to writing full time again, despite his belief that full-time writing explains the strange behavior of so many authors.
Garth currently lives in a beach suburb of Sydney with his wife Anna, a publisher, and their son, Thomas.
Anyway, he's authored such books as the Abhorsen Trilogy, the Keys to the Kingdom series, and Shade's Children. Recently many of his short stories have been collected in Across the Wall. My favorite is the one with the Three Musketeers references.
Garth Nix writes some of the only young adult fantasy I'll still admit to reading. I love especially the way he crafts his worlds- they are the most engaging fantasy settings I have ever read. And, unlike some other authors, the more I read the more he seems like a genuinely nice guy.
The site is called "Elements of Fantasy" after a line from an introduction to one of his stories, Hope Chest:
I find it difficult to write a story of any kind without introducing elements of fantasy or science fiction. I seem to have a natural tendency to divert from the staight and narrow of realism.
Actually, I'm not very fond of the name. I seem to lack the words that come so easily to Mr. Nix.