Nick Bland

Nick Bland is the son of an artist and a primary school teacher, and he spent his early childhood climbing haystacks and making mischief in his father's studio. Nick always told family and friends he was going to be a cartoonist and a writer. It wasn't until 1996, when he stumbled into a bookshop job, that he finally found the medium that would bring those two loves together. Untrained, he spent the next couple of years reading every picture book that hit the shelves and began honing his style as a storyteller and illustrator. He illustrated several readers before sending 'A Monster Wrote Me a Letter' to Scholastic Australia in 2001. He now lives in Darwin, Australia, where he has started works full time as an author illustrator. On weekends he works as a guardian for 120 aboriginal boys from around Northern Australia who are boarding in Darwin. He loves both of his jobs and hopes to combine them in the near future.