Serpent's Gate Key

Australian writer of children's and young adult fantasy novels.

via Wikipedia: Garth Nix · see source

Garth Richard Nix (born 19 July 1963) is an Australian writer who specialises in children's and young adult fantasy novels, notably the Old Kingdom, Seventh Tower and Keys to the Kingdom series. He has frequently been asked if his name is a pseudonym, to which he has responded, "I guess people ask me because it sounds like the perfect name for a writer of fantasy. However, it is my real name."

Lore & Background

Born in Melbourne, Nix was raised in Canberra. He attended Turner Primary School, Lyneham High School and Dickson College for schooling. While at Dickson College, Nix joined the Australian Army Reserve. After a period working for the Australian government, he traveled in Europe before returning to Australia in 1983 and undertaking a BA in professional writing at University of Canberra.

He worked in a Canberra bookshop after graduation, before moving to Sydney in 1987, where he worked his way up in the publishing field. He was a sales rep and publicist before becoming a senior editor at HarperCollins. In 1993 he commenced further travel in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe before becoming a marketing consultant, founding his own company, Gotley Nix Evans Pty Ltd. From 1999 to 2002 he worked as a literary agent with Curtis Brown (Australia) Pty Ltd before becoming a full-time author.

In addition to his work as a fantasy novelist, Nix has written a number of scenarios and articles for the role playing field, including those for Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. These have appeared in related publications such as White Dwarf, Multiverse and Breakout!. He has also written case studies, articles and news items in the information technology field, his work appearing in publications such as Computerworld and PC World. Nix was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours. Nix currently lives in Sydney with his wife Anna McFarlane, a publisher, and their sons Thomas and Edward.

Reader's Guide

Nix's works for younger readers include the picture book series Very Clever Baby, which was self-published and republished by Text Publishing. Described as books for "Very Clever Babies Aged 3–6 Months", they contain such words as ichthyologist, as used by the character Freddy the Fish. The series includes Very Clever Baby's First Reader (1988), Very Clever Baby's Ben Hur (1988), Very Clever Baby's Guide to the Greenhouse Effect (1992), and Very Clever Baby's First Christmas (1998).

He also wrote the collection One Beastly Beast: Two Aliens, Three Inventors, Four Fantastic Tales (2007), a book of short stories for younger readers containing "Serena and the Sea Serpent", "Bill the Inventor", and "Blackbread the Pirate". His short fiction includes "Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case" (2005), a novella produced for World Book Day and originally entitled "The Creature in the Case", and "To Hold the Bridge", a novella originally published in the Legends of Australian Fantasy anthology edited by Jack Dann and Jonathan Strahan.