I�ve been a professional writer all my working life � which is a lot longer than I care to say.

I began in advertising, worked in Sydney and London then back in Sydney again, with a brief stint filling in as Creative Director in a Singapore agency. Then I switched to television and worked for eight years on a comedy called �Hey Dad!�, among other shows. In the nineties, I started doing corporate work: conferences, videos, corporate songs and so forth.

But all that time, I wanted to be an author. And I was writing books in my spare time.

The Ranger�s Apprentice series was born out of a set of short stories I wrote many years ago for my son Mike, to encourage him to read. I wrote and illustrated them for him and I�ve tried to reproduce some of those original drawings through the website.

There were twenty short stories in all and they served to develop my main characters � Will, Halt, Tug, and Horace. Interestingly, in those original stories, Horace was the villain and he and Will actually fought a duel with practice weapons. When I expanded those original short stories into first one book, then two, then the eventual four that formed the first Ranger�s series, I rehabilitated Horace and he turned out to be Will�s best friend.

The day I was told that Random House Australia had offered to publish my series is still a red letter day in my mind. It was a lifetime ambition achieved.

I love the fact that I can say I�m an author when asked what I do. I love writing it on immigration forms when I fly overseas. (That�s my second favourite form of writing these days!)

The series has grown now to seven books. I still enjoy the characters and to me, that�s the key to writing and reading. I believe you have to become involved with the characters. I assume I�ll keep writing more in the series, as well as some other ideas I�ve got waiting (more of that in Projects).

I�m married to a beautiful woman named Leonie. Early in 2007, we celebrated our 40th anniversary together. Over the years we�ve gone skiing together, played tennis together (she always used to beat me) and these days we play golf together. With golf we�re pretty evenly matched. Years ago, I used to shoot at a field archery club, which is where a lot of the background for Ranger�s comes from.

I�ve currently got a new longbow which I take when I�m doing school talks. But I�m sadly out of practice and the nearest range is too far away for regular visits.

I�ve played in an acoustic band for over thirty years with two old friends. I play guitar and mandolin. I have a collection of instruments but these days Leonie says I have to sell one before I buy another - we�re running out of space.

We have two daughters, one son and four grandsons. We live in the northern beaches suburb of Manly in Sydney, which is God�s own country as far as we�re concerned. Parking can be a problem so I buzz around the suburb on my 150 cc motor scooter. Great fun!

To all those who read my books, I want to say thank you so much. You�ve helped my dream come true. I�m now doing what I have always wanted to do. I hope you keep enjoying the books.

I certainly enjoy writing them.

John Flanagan.