Simon Higgins

Higgins’ second novel, Thunderfish was also listed as a 2000 Notable Book by the CBCA.

Higgins has been repeatedly noted in teaching journals and the Australian media for his efforts to ‘masculinise reading’.

In 2013 Higgins received an Australian Government Endeavour Executive Fellowship Award to live and study ‘Screenwriting for Film & TV Animation’ in China.

In 2010, in recognition of his efforts to promote greater understanding of Asian cultures, Higgins was invited by the Australian government's Asia Education Foundation to become an Ambassador for Asia Literacy.

Higgins trained and competed in Japan in the traditional sword art of Iaido, and placed fifth in Iaido's world titles in Kyoto in 2008 He has stated that this personal immersion in traditional Asian warrior culture and discipline inspired his most successful novels, which featured samurai and ninja.

His 2008 novel, Moonshadow: Eye of the Beast, was an Australian bestseller, was shortlisted for the 2008 Aurealis Fantasy Award and subsequently published in the United States, Germany, Indonesia and England.

In 2007 Higgins won a Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) National Literary Award for an unpublished novel about historical Asia.

One of the sequels to Thunderfish, titled Under No Flag, was shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Crime Writing Award in 2002.

Originally a police officer then private investigator in Adelaide, South Australia, working predominantly on homicide cases, he turned to writing in 1998.

His debut novel, Doctor Id, published in Australia 1998, subsequently released in Italy and serialised in Japan, was listed as a 1999 Notable Book of the Year by the Children's Book Council of Australia.

Simon Higgins is an Australian screenwriter and author of books for young adults, born in 1958 in England. He arrived in Australia in 1963 after first living in Nigeria, Africa.