Cirrus@Austlit

Andrew Whitmore spent his early childhood in the suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. Later he lived in a number of country towns where his father, a policeman, was stationed. Reading Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings during his high school years heightened Whitmore's interest in fantasy. Whitmore studied ancient history and English literature at Monash University. He became a teacher and librarian in rural Victoria apart from a year teaching English in Turkey. Whitmore participated in the 1975 Clarion of the Antipodes writers' workshop at which Ursula Le Guin was Writer in Residence. His first novel was a 'sword and sorcery' novel. Whitmore also wrote genre related non-fiction.

(Adapted from 'Whitmore, Andrew (1955- )' in The MUP Encyclopaedia of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy (ed.) Paul Collins (1998): 180).