I was born in Cairns, Queensland. My mother’s side of the family descends from Irish convicts, magistrates, and horse thieves. My maternal grandfather and great-grandfather were police officers in Sydney, which suggests a family tradition of being on one side of the law or the other, depending on the generation. My father was a car thief — though usually he repossessed automobiles for finance companies, which in the interests of respectability I rarely mention.

My family was itinerant and I attended thirteen schools. We were poor enough that I remember buying day-old bread directly from the trucks making deliveries to pig farms.

I started programming at eight on a TRS-80. At Griffith University I audited every IT class I could get away with, learned PROLOG and C++, and then majored in Cultural Studies, writing my honours dissertation on satire in the Soviet Union, and wow did that last one become useful.

After graduating I worked and travelled. I lived in Germany, Austria, and Spain before spending about sixteen years in the United States, including a stint as IT Guy for the Countway Medical Library at Harvard Medical School, followed by a role as a biological software engineer, and eventually creative director, at Harvard’s Center for Biomedical Informatics. As a freelancer I’ve built things for Autodesk, Stanford, UCSF, Caltech, and Comedy Central.

In 2008 I founded Wrongcards, a satirical ecards website, which remains popular today with a small audience I’m grateful for and slightly worried about.

I’m the author of The Harvard Skull Fiasco and Rise of the Blue Bandicoot, with more novels in progress. I write a newsletter called My Blameless Life.

A note on creativity. I have opinions on this subject, backed — unlike most — by actual evidence. My view is simple: any person who claims expertise in creativity but cannot draw a compelling werewolf should be shunned. Pop-psychologists have colonised the field, and not one of them has produced a werewolf worthy of mention. The proof has been suppressed. If you’d like to know more, subscribe to my newsletter.