Trudi

Trudi Canavan was born in Kew, Melbourne and grew up in Ferntree Gully, a suburb at the foothills of the Dandenongs.

In 1999 she won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story with “Whispers of the Mist Children”. In the same year she was granted a writers residency at Varuna Writers’ Centre in Katoomba, New South Wales.

In November 2001, The Magicians’ Guild was first published in Australia. The second book of the trilogy, The Novice, was published in June 2002 and 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 bestseller lists.

The Black Magician Trilogy reached the international market in 2004, published by HarperCollins’ EOS imprint in North America and Orbit Books in the UK. The trilogy is now rated by Nielsen BookScan as the most successful debut fantasy series of the last 10 years.

Trudi’s second trilogy, Age of the Five, has also enjoyed bestselling success. Priestess of the White reached No.3 in the Sunday Times hardback fiction bestseller list, staying in the top ten for six weeks.

In early 2006 Trudi signed a seven-figure contract with Orbit to write the prequel and sequel to the Black Magician Trilogy. The prequel, The Magician’s Apprentice was released in 2009 and won the Best Fantasy Novel category of the Aurealis Awards. The sequel trilogy has enjoyed great success on the bestseller lists and The Rogue reached no. 11 in the Fantasy category of the Goodreads Best Books of 2011 Awards. In 2011 she embarked on a tour that included the UK, Ireland, Poland, France and Germany.

In 2013 BBC Books contacted her to see if she would like to write a Doctor Who enovella, to which she said ‘YES!’. Her story, “Salt of the Earth” was published in March 2014.

Trudi’s next fantasy adventure, the Millenium’s Rule trilogy, will take place in an exciting new universe. For details look under the Books menu. However, she hasn’t completely ruled out writing more books set in the Black Magician Trilogy world some time in the future.

For a 100-word bio, go to the Publicity Material page.