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Sean Williams Sean Williams i(A13682 works by) (a.k.a. Sean Llewellyn Williams)
Also writes as: E. W. Story ; Bradley MacMillan ; E. T. Ladd
Born: Established: 1967 Whyalla, Whyalla area, Northern Eyre Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Sean Williams was born in Whyalla, a seaport town on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, but largely raised in Adelaide, where he still lives (as of 2017).

Educated at Pulteney Grammar School in Adelaide, he won the South Australia Young Composers Award the year he graduated (1984). While his music has not been as prominent a part of his published work as his writing, he has continued to work in the field, including producing the script and limited score for The Soap Bubble: A Space Opera (table reading at Conflux, 2006) and the musical collage The Grand Silence (2016).

He studied for a Bachelor of Economics at the University of Adelaide, from which institution he later gained both a Master of Arts and a PhD in Creative Writing: he remains a visiting scholar at the university and an affiliate of its J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice.  

In 1991, Williams began his writing career with a series of short stories in amateur and small-press publications, leading to a sale to the magazine Aurealis. He published more than forty stories in the 1990s in Australian periodicals and anthologies

His first novel was The Unknown Soldier, written with Shane Dix, and published in 1995, later reimagined and re-written as The Prodigal Sun, book one of the Evergence trilogy (1999-2001). He later collaborated on other works with Dix, most notably the Force Heretic trilogy, a series set in the Star Wars universe.

His work has been translated into French, Japanese, Russian and Polish, and collected in Doorway to Eternity (MirrorDanse Books, 1994), A View Before Dying (Ticonderoga, 1998), the Ditmar award-winning New Adventures in Sci-Fi (Ticonderoga, 1999) and Magic Dirt : The Best of Sean Williams (Ticonderoga, 2008).

His work for children includes the Troubletwisters series with Garth Nix, as well as the  collaboration, Have Sword, Will Travel. His work for young-adult readers includes the Broken Land Trilogy, The Change trilogy, and the Twinmaker series (three novels and multiple short stories). He has also written a wide range of standalone works for children, young-adult, and adult readerships.

Among his awards are multiple Aurealis and Ditmar Awards, and nominations for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Seiun Award, and the William Atheling Jr. Award for criticism.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Her Perilous Mansion Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2020 18880309 2020 single work children's fiction children's fantasy 'In a strange mansion miles from anywhere, an orphan named Almanac and a twelfth daughter named Etta find themselves working - and bickering - side by side in the largely deserted rooms. But soon they realise that the house and its inhabitants are not quite what they seem, and there's more at stake than just their jobs. Can they solve the puzzle of Her Perilous Mansion before it's too late?' (Publication summary)
2021 finalist Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Children's Division
2021 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Books
2021 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book Younger Readers
y separately published work icon Impossible Music Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2019 15988116 2019 single work novel young adult

'Music is Simon's life—which is why he is devastated when a mini-stroke obliterates his hearing. He resists attempts to help him adjust to his new state, refusing to be counselled, refusing to learn sign language, refusing to have anything to do with deaf culture. Refusing, that is, until he meets G, a tough-as-nails girl dealing with her own hearing loss. In an emotionally compelling tale crackling with originality, Simon's quest to create an entirely new form of music forces him into a deeper understanding of his relationship to the hearing world, of himself, and of the girl he meets along the way.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2020 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
2020 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book
y separately published work icon Fall Hollowgirl Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2015 9003324 2015 single work novel young adult science fiction

'Action and danger fuel this near-future thriller in a fresh take on technology, identity, and the lengths one girl will go to save her best friend. The explosive conclusion to the Twinmaker series.

'Clair's world has been destroyed - again. The only remaining hope of saving her friends is for her and Q to enter the Yard, a digital world of Ant Wallace's creation. The rules there are the same as those of the real world: water is real; fire is real; death is real. It all looks exactly the same as the world she used to know. But in the Yard there are two Clair Hills, and their very existence causes cracks that steadily widen.

'Getting inside is the easy part. Once there, Clair has to earn the trust of her friends, including the girl who started it all - her best friend, Libby. But they don't know what's happened to the real world, and the other Clair is headstrong, impulsive, suspicious - just like Clair herself used to be. And that makes her dangerous.

'As Clair struggles to find Jesse and make peace with herself, a surprising new ally emerges from the ashes of the world. Together they fight their way through the digital and political minefield in the hope of saving the world once and for all. This time Clair has to get it right ... or lose everything.' (Publication summary)

2015 finalist Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Science Fiction Division Novel

Known archival holdings

University of Queensland University of Queensland Library Fryer Library (QLD)
Last amended 16 May 2018 10:20:21
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