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Will Elliott's debut novel The Pilo Family Circus was published after winning the ABC fiction award, beating 900 entries from across Australia.
Once published, it co-won the Aurealis award for best horror, won the Golden Aurealis for best novel, the Australian Shadows Award, the Ditmar, the Sydney Morning Herald "Best Young Novelist Award" for 2007, and was short-listed for the 2007 International Horror Guild Award, up against, among others, Stephen King.
Will is currently working on a dark fantasy project, The Pendulum Trilogy, which will probably be published before his other new novel, Nightfall. His memoir, Strange Places, was launched in Australia in May 2009.
Will Elliott was born in Brisbane in 1979, or so he is told. As a young child he had a peculiar fixation with bridges, especially bridges over water – he has never found out why. He also used to sit up watching his younger brother fall asleep, wishing to see the exact moment it happened: again, he's unsure why.
He believes writers download their material from “elsewhere”, that a writer’s skill is simply the size of their bandwidth limit (and/or speed), and that one's training/practice establishes and maintains this function. He also supposes that true art has a purpose the conscious mind doesn’t necessarily know. This does not mean he always produces true art, which you need not remind him of.
When not writing, he frequently rescues Princess Peach via his Mario incarnation, since EverQuest/WoW are too addictive to mess with. He has lately been reading about the power of crystals and New Age mumbo jumbo. Not one to impose his beliefs upon you, he has nonetheless noticed immediate improvements in his circumstance, and has come to believe that spiritual enlightenment is far more important than bloating one’s ego on praise seeking missions, for instance a writing career. This does not mean he doesn’t still desperately crave praise, awards, money, etc. Hit me.
Hiis debut, The Pilo Family Circus, came to international attention in 2006, winning numerous awards. This was not his fault. He has also written a memoir which was short-listed for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards (non-fiction category) in 2010. His current work in progress is the Pendulum Trilogy, a dark fantasy of at least three parts: Pilgrims, Shadow, World's End. Buy them, for God's sake. He has a mortgage now. (Will does, not God. Or maybe God does too, but who honestly feels any sympathy?)
He lives in Brisbane, Australia.