Stephen Dando-Collins

He also writes children's novels, the first of which, Chance in a Million, (Hodder Headline, Sydney, 1998), was filmed by PolyGram as Paws, starring Billy Connolly.

In 2012, he started the Caesar the War Dog series of children's novels, based on the true stories of modern-day military dogs serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere, with the fifth in the series published in 2016.

As a teenager he played drums in several rock bands, and at the age of 19 he was co-founder and first secretary of the Van Diemen Light Railway Society.

After working in Australia and Britain as a graphic designer, copywriter, creative director, and senior advertising agency executive, he became an independent marketing consultant in Sydney.

He ran the Australian operations of an American market research company before moving to Noosa Heads, and then to the Tamar Valley in Tasmania, where he writes full-time.