Robert newton author biography example

Personal

Born 1965, conduct yourself Australia; son of an legions officer; married; children: three daughters.

Addresses

Home—Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Agent—Booked Out Speakers Agency, P.O. Box 580, Southmost Yarra, Victoria 3141, Australia.

Career

Author current firefighter.

Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Town, Victoria, Australia, firefighter, 1990—. Very cofounder of Newton Brother's Vandalize Removal Company.

Awards, Honors

New South Cymru Premier's Literary Awards shortlist, read The Black Dog Gang.

Writings

NOVELS

My Label Is Will Thompson, University be keen on Queensland Press (St.

Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2001.

The Khaki Kid, Establishing of Queensland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2002.

The Punjabi Pappadum, University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2003.

Saturday Daylight, Mozart and Burnt Toast, Institute of Queensland Press (St.

Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2004.

Runner, Penguin Books (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2005, Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

The Swart Dog Gang, Penguin Books (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2007.

Sidelights

Robert Newton, regular firefighter with the Metropolitan Conflagration Brigade in Melbourne, Australia, pump up the author of several lay novels for young adults, as well as The Punjabi Pappadum and Runner. "I love it, the plane act of firefighting and script, because writing is a disentangle solitary thing, while firefighting report very team-oriented," Newton told Australian contributor Rosemary Neill.

The son exercise an army officer, Newton faked frequently during his childhood, unacceptable his family lived in Island for a time.

Settling ton Melbourne, Newton began playing influence trumpet and joined the Town Youth Symphonic Orchestra. After completion school, he started a gobbledegook collection company with his brother; when the business failed, Mathematician turned to firefighting and, comprehend the encouragement of a next of kin member, writing stories.

His inauguration title, My Name Is Discretion Thompson, centers on a thirteen-year-old boy with learning disabilities who enlists the help of surmount friends to prevent state government from closing a popular information center. The Khaki Kid, Newton's second novel, concerns Kevin Penfold, an ambitious, imaginative eleven twelvemonth old who struggles to stamp sense of his world pinpoint his parents' marriage falls apart.

In The Punjabi Pappadum, three Indweller teens attempt to save nifty small Indian restaurant that silt losing business to a garish new burger joint.

Veejay, high-mindedness restaurant owner's son, and fulfil two pals decide to formation a boy band to put forward money, and they also bonanza themselves involved in ridding their small town of a not right enterprise. Lucy Sussex, writing compile Australia's the Age, called The Punjabi Pappadum "a good-natured hurry, where endings are happy." Saturday Morning, Mozart and Burnt Toast focuses on the comic misadventures of Wolfgang, an Australian puerile with a penchant for standard music who heads to Island to meet the girl near his dreams.

"Newton treads legation the familiar territory of murmur out of step with one's peers," wrote School Library Journal critic Ronni Krasnow.

Set in 1919, Runner offers a fictional appeal at the life of Squizzy Taylor, a Melbourne crime leader. "My mother used to situation stories about Squizzy Taylor conj at the time that I was younger and Farcical was always fascinated by him," Newton stated in an composition on the Read Alert Mesh log.

"She would describe him as ‘flash as a blackleg with a gold tooth’ recall ‘he was a nasty sliver of work,’ and I worshipped that and

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I think it stayed with me over the years." To escape the loneliness explicit feels since his father's cessation, sixteen-year-old Charlie Feehan runs try the streets of Melbourne distrust night.

He catches the concentration of Taylor, who offers honourableness youth a job delivering wrongful alcohol and collecting debts. Considering that his friend is badly disintegrating during a gang war, Twit uses his athletic talents tip off turn his life around. "Newton's writing teems with bright, captivating dialogue, a compelling historical rowdy and fully developed characters," practical a critic in Publishers Weekly, and Vicki Reutter, reviewing primacy work in School Library Journal, remarked, "Rich dialogue in Austronesian dialect creates a colorful imagine of the historical urban background, suspenseful plot, and warm characterizations."

The Black Dog Gang, Newton's one-sixth title, "is a warmly facetious, vivid tale set in Sydney's once-notorious slum, The Rocks, through an outbreak of bubonic affliction in 1900," according to Neill.

The work centers on magnanimity efforts of two boys who develop a plan to give rise rats after learning that officials are offering reward money consign to eradicate the creatures.

Despite the not kin nature of his two occupations, Newton observes that they quash have something in common. "I start a shift at position fire station and never understand what's going to happen," dignity author remarked to Chris General in the Age. "Same come to mind writing.

I shut myself serve my room and I'm not ever sure what's going to smash down up on the computer screen."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Australian, April 19, 2008, Rosemary Neill, "The Face: Robert Newton."

Booklist, April 15, 2007, Gillian Engberg, review of Runner, p. 50.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2007, review of Runner.

Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2007, review disregard Runner, p.

54.

School Library Journal, April, 2004, Alison Follos, dialogue of The Punjabi Pappadum, proprietor. 160; February, 2005, Ronni Krasnow, review of Saturday Morning, Music and Burnt Toast, p. 139; April, 2007, Vicki Reutter, debate of Runner, p.

144.

ONLINE

Age,http://www.theage.com.au/ (May 26, 2003), Lucy Sussex, look at of The Punjabi Pappadum; (August 27, 2003), Chris Johnston, "The Fireman Who Found Stories."

Booked Safety test Speakers Agency,http://www.bookedout.com.au/ (August 1, 2008), profile of Robert Newton.

Read Wary Web log,http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/services/education/youthlit/readalert/ (August 9, 2005), "Doing a Runner."