Dr Nick Earls writes long, short and medium-sized fiction, so far tallying 28 books for adults, teenagers and children.
He is the winner of a number of awards, including a Betty Trask Award (UK) and a Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award. His Wisdom Tree novellas have won gold medals in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and the eLit Book Awards in the US, the People’s Choice Award at the 2017 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and an Australian Book Design Award.
Perfect Skin was the only novel to be a finalist in the Australian Comedy Awards in 2003, and was adapted into a feature film in Italy (Solo un Padre, Warner Brothers/Cattleya). 48 Shades of Brown was a Kirkus Reviews (US) book of the year selection, and was adapted into a feature film in Australia (Buena Vista/Prima). Five of his novels have been adapted into stage plays.
He has also written for newspapers, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2018, a commission from the William Robinson Gallery at QUT led to him writing William Robinson: A New Perspective, an exploration of the life behind the artist’s work.
His novels have appeared on bestseller lists in Australia, the UK and the Amazon Kindle Store.
His PhD thesis ‘Wisdom Tree and the Novella in the Twenty-First Century’ examined contemporary novella craft and publishing, putting him in the unusual position (for him) of being able to substantiate what he’s saying about this topic. He has distilled his 3.5 years of PhD research into a two-hour masterclass on novella craft and markets which he has so far delivered in most Australian states.
He was born in Northern Ireland, but has spent most of his life in Australia. In 2012, the Age included him among its top ten Greatest Living Australians (along with Warwick Capper and Shane Warne …).
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