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Max Fatchen is Australia’s best known children’s author and poet. He grew up on an Adelaide Plains farm, entered journalism as a copy boy, and after World War II became a journalist, covering assignments such as the first atomic bomb at Maralinga and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas. He began writing for children in 1966 and has been writing for them ever since. His novels include The River Kings (1966), The Spirit Wind (1973), Chase Through the Night (1977), and Closer to the Stars (1981), and his best-loved volumes of poetry include Songs for My Dog and Other People (1980), Wry Rhymes for Troublesome Times (1983), and Peculiar Rhymes and Lunatic Lines (1995). He has written twenty-two books in total, with his novels published in more than seven countries and his poetry published throughout the English-speaking world.
Three of his books have received commendation in the Children's Book of the Year Award, and among his many awards he has received the Order of Australia for journalism and literature (1980), the Advance Australia Award for literature (1991), the Walkley Award for career journalism (1996), the Primary English Teaching Associations Award for children's poetry (1996) and the SA Great Award for Literature (1999). More recently he was given the Centenary of Federation Medal for service to the community in journalism, poetry and writing for children (2003).
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