Welcome to Israel

I grew up on a dairy farm on the Koo Wee Rup swamp in West Gippsland, Victoria. I preferred reading books and writing stories and poems to milking cows (although I loved playing with our dog and chooks). My cousins Lynnette and Susan and I produced a newspaper called The Thrilling Three, and when I was nine I had my first poem published in the Junior Age section of The Age newspaper. It was called My Little Creek and I was paid 17 shillings and sixpence for it. I made up most of my poems while riding my bike to school and piano lessons.

Paul Collins pioneered the publishing of heroic fantasy in Australia. In 1975 he launched Void, a science fiction magazine. During the eighties he published the country’s first heroic fantasy novels by Keith Taylor, David Lake and Russell Blackford. His novels include ‘The Dog King’, ‘The Great Ferret Race’, ‘The Earthborn’ and ‘The Wizard’s Torment’.