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Photograph from Garth Nix Website.
Garth Nix Garth Nix i(A7425 works by) (a.k.a. Garth Richard Nix)
Born: Established: 1963 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Born in Melbourne in 1963, Garth Nix grew up in Canberra, ACT. After graduating school, Nix joined the Army reserve and enjoyed being a part-time soldier for the next five years. On a trip to England and Europe, Nix wrote a few stories, one of which, 'Sam, Cars and the Cuckoo ', became his first published short story in 1984.

Upon his return to Australia he began working at a bookstore in Canberra where he began writing his first novel, The Ragwitch (1990). He began studying at the University of Canberra and graduated with a degree in professional writing in 1996. Nix worked for several years in the publishing business in Sydney before travelling extensively. Nix undertook the overland route from London to Pakistan, tracing the footsteps of Alexander the Great. During that journey, Nix wrote part of his next book Sabriel, a fantasy novel for young adults, about a magical girl from a very different world. Sabriel received national and international acclaim winning the American Library Association Honor Book Award and the Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Award for both Best Fantasy Novel and Young Adult Fiction. 

Nix followed Sabriel with the standalone novel Shade's Children (1997) before returning to the Old Kingdom with a follow-up to Sabriel: Lirael : Daughter of the Clayr (2001), which won the 2002 Adelaide Festival Award for Children's Literature. The third in the series, Abhorsen, was published in 2003. Clariel followed in 2014 and the final novel, Goldenhand, in 2016. The Old Kingdom series (including collections of short stories) has won national and international awards including the Aurealis Award (four times), the American Library Association Honor Book listings (twice), and the Ditmar Award: Goldenhand was nominated for both the Carnegie Medal and a Locus Award.

His The Keys to the Kingdom is a seven book children’s fantasy series that was shortlisted for the YABBA Award for Fiction for Older Readers and the 2010 Koala Award. This was followed by The Seventh Tower and Troubletwisters Series. Nix also writes standalone Young Adult Science Fiction, Children’s Books and Children’s Fantasy such as The Ragwitch, Blood Ties, Frogkisser!, and We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord. In 2021 he was awarded the Ditmar Award for Best Novel, the Aurealis Award for Fantasy Novel, the ABIA Award for Book of the Year for The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. The sequel, The Sinister Booksellers of Bath , again won the 2023 Ditmar Award for Best Novel. His short stories, which he began in 1984, also regularly attract award nominations: he won the Aurealis Award for Best Short Fantasy Story in 2007 with 'Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again'.

Throughout Nix’s life he has worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve. He has been a full-time writer since 2001. 

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Voted number 39 in the Booktopia Top 50 Favourite Australian Authors for 2018

Awards for Works

Showdown on Planetoid Pencrux 2023 single work novella science fiction
— Appears in: Asimov's Science Fiction , July-August 2023; (p. 98-111)
2023 finalist Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Science Fiction Division Novella
y separately published work icon The Sinister Booksellers of Bath Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2023 25526615 2023 single work children's fiction children's fantasy

'Return to the enchanting world of ABIA winner The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, as a team of booksellers must fight to keep dangerous magic under cover before the stuff of legends destroys our world. From master world builder Garth Nix, this riveting fantasy adventure is set in an alternate 1980s London.

'There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity who inhabits the ancient hot spring. Yet this time it is not from Sulis Minerva that trouble starts. It comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger. A desperate rescue is attempted by his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, and their friend, art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage.

'The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery performed by an Ancient Sovereign and guarded by monstrous living statues of Purbeck marble. But this is only the beginning, as the booksellers investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths and try to unravel the secrets of the murderous Lady of Stone, a serial killer of awesome powers.

'If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her target is not an ordinary mortal.

'A wintry return to the somewhat alternate 1980s England of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London.'(Publication summary)

2024 winner Ditmar Awards Best Novel
2024 finalist Locus Awards Young Adult Novel
2024 finalist Hugo Award Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
2023 finalist Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Fantasy Division Novel
2024 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book Older Readers
2023 longlisted British Science Fiction Association Awards Novel
2024 shortlisted Indie Awards Young Adult
2023 shortlisted Dymocks Book of the Year Young Readers Book of the Year
Last amended 17 Feb 2025 11:53:00
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