Brian has been visiting schools, festivals and running school holiday programmes since 2004. Over the last few years it has become his full time job, squeezing in a bit of time to actually write his novels.

Brian will tell how he got involved in visiting schools, from his very first visit in New Zealand, to his shift to Australia to get on the busy school circuit there.

He’ll talk about what he learnt along the way, including the mistakes, and the challenges, the highs and the lows of being a full time public speaker.

He’ll discuss virtual visits, and how to encourage students to order copies of your books.

BIO:

In 2006 Brian was scuba diving off a small island near the coast of Phuket when his dive buddy frantically pointed at a small underwater rock formation that Brian was just passing. Brian turned to see a huge moray eel with a head the size of a football staring at him.

Brian started to back away slowly, but instead of attacking, the eel turned and wound its way into a crevice. That incident is not yet in one of Brian’s books, but one day it might well be. A lot of Brian’s real life adventures end up in his books, (in fictional disguise of course!) Whether it is an attack by a vicious swarm of wasps, being bullied at school, or skimming the surface of the ocean in a tiny seaplane, Brian loves to use real incidents as the basis for the stories in his books.

A recent face-to-face encounter with a deadly king cobra, a ride on an elephant with a mind of its own, and a long distance flight with a flatulent fellow passenger, are all lodged away somewhere waiting for the right moment to emerge in a story.

Brian wanted to be an author ever since he was a child. It only took him thirty years to realise that dream. Along the way he worked as a reporter, advertising copywriter, radio announcer, graphic designer, and Internet developer. Now an award-winning author, Brian has had twenty-one books published internationally. He is also an internationally acclaimed writing coach, running workshops and writing camps around Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

He lives in Queensland, Australia.