Trudi Canavan grew up in Ferntree Gully in Victoria and worked as a designer, illustrator and cartographer (Canavan drew the maps for Roland Perry's
Monash). In the mid 1990s Canavan started to write part-time while working for her own graphic design business and as art editor for the Australian fantasy and science fiction magazine
Aurealis. In 1999 she won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story with 'Whispers of the Mist Children' and was granted a writers residency at Varuna Writers' Centre.