AustLit

Antony Eaton grew up in Perth and the Cocos Islands. He undertook his secondary education in the Perth hills and gained a BA, a Grad. Dip. Ed. and, later, a PhD in creative writing. He has worked as a security guard, sail training instructor, a high-school English and literature teacher and a sessional teacher at university level. Eaton has competed in triathlons and rowing competitions.

Eaton's first novel was published in 2000, and has been followed by two series (The Darklands Trilogy and the Nathan Nuttboard Trilogy) as well as a number of standalone works. His Darklands Trilogy have been shortlisted and awarded in the Aurealis Awards for Australian Speculative Fiction. The final book of the trilogy, Daywards, was released by UQP in March 2010, and was a CBCA notable Australian Children’s book in 2011. He has twice won the Western Australian Premier’s Literary Award for young adult fiction, and twice been awarded an Honour Book award by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. His works have also featured on the International Youth Library’s annual White Ravens catalogue of significant international children’s books.

At the end of 2005 he travelled to Antarctica to research his novel Into White Silence which received critical acclaim, including an Honour Book Prize in the 2009 CBCA awards and a shortlisting in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. In late 2011, Random House Australia re-published a literary edition of Into White Silence for the adult marketplace.

In 2017, Eaton was an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Studies at the University of Canberra, where he researches the contemporary influence of Young Adult fiction upon cultural discourse, among other things. He is also the president of the Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research (ACLAR), editor of the journal Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature, and an associate member of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research at the University of Canberra.