I grew up in Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs feeling far away from anything interesting. At eight I raced BMX; at thirteen I was into hair dye and pop music; at fifteen I decided that (like Sheila E) I wanted to lead the glamorous life, but school was a reality I couldn't ignore ' after school I boarded the carousel of casual employment - pubs, cafes and record shops. I read all the time ' I loved the beats, pulp fiction and cult writers ' I had lots of literary crushes ' I finally went to University where I set up a small press called Vandal Press ' and began writing seriously. Then I went overseas, leaving a trail of short stories ' In 2002, one of my stories was made into the short film Pity 24. I won the Australian Writers Guild award for the script and travelled with the film to the Los Angeles Shortsfest where I saw the blind guy from Becker, walked on Kim Basinger's red carpet and went to a pool party atop Schwabs Drugstore (and learned that no one swims at LA pool parties, NO ONE...)Finally I got a proper job working on hit TV show The Secret Life of Us where part of my job was writing the guff - the seven seconds of something that no-one actually hears. And when that job folded, I took all this stuff about movies and false starts and appreciating the background bits and turned them into a novel.