James Clancy Phelan

James Phelan
Born 21 May 1979
Melbourne, Australia
Occupation Novelist/writer
Nationality Australian
Genre Thriller and Young Adult
Website
www.jamesphelan.com.au

James Clancy Phelan (born 21 May 1979), known professionally as James Phelan, is an Australian author of thrillers and young adult novels, including Fox Hunt, The Last 13 series for teens, and the Jed Walker and Lachlan Fox thrillers. He has also written short stories, and non-fiction works such as Literati.

Early life

Phelan was born in Victoria, Australia. He was introduced to the world of books at an early age, with such works as The Hobbit, Treasure Island and The Jungle Book. As a teenager, he read many thriller novels, including works by Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy. In 1995, at the age of fifteen, he began writing his first novel, Fox Hunt. After attending Eltham High School and Wonthaggi Secondary College, Phelan studied architecture and English literature, graduating with a Master of Arts in Writing from RMIT while working for The Age newspaper. As of 2009, he teaches writing at Swinburne University in Melbourne. He is also a PhD candidate at Swinburne University.[1]

In 2006, Phelan was selected as one of the Cleo 50 Most Eligible Bachelors in Australia.[2] As an architecture student, Phelan worked for two years on the Federation Square design team.[3]

Career

Phelan's first published book was the 2005 non-fiction work Literati. His short story, "Soliloquy for One Dead", appeared in Griffith Review's 2006 edition: The Next Big Thing. His first published novel was Fox Hunt. He has also written for The Age newspaper and Cosmopolitan magazine, and published several short story anthologies and a serialized novel.

Phelan's first book, Literati: Australian Contemporary Literary Figures Discuss Fear, Frustrations and Fame, was released by John Wiley & Sons in 2005. It documents a series of interviews in which Phelan asked questions of a broad range of literary figures in Australia, including Matthew Reilly, Tara Moss, John Marsden, John Birmingham, and Peter Craven.

Fox Hunt, Phelan's first fiction book, was published by Hachette in August 2006. The story is set as a bridge between the aftermath of the Cold War and the War on Terrorism, with Lachlan and his best friend thrown unwittingly into a war that crosses time. Patriot Act, the second installment in the adventures of Lachlan Fox, was published in August 2007. Set mainly in New York City, Washington, D.C., and France, it tells the story of Lachlan Fox investigating a series of murders in Europe that are linked to a forthcoming hack on NSA computers. The third Lachlan Fox novel, Blood Oil, was published in August 2008 and is set in Nigeria, the US, and the UK. The fourth Lachlan Fox novel, "Liquid Gold", was published in August 2009 and is set in the US, Pakistan, and India.

The author wrote a series of post-apocalyptic young adult novels called the ALONE trilogy, consisting of the novels - Chasers, Survivor and Quarantine - and features 16-year-old Jesse and his three close friends, who escape from a crashed subway train to find New York City in ruins after an attack.

In September 2011, Phelan released a free Lachlan Fox short story titled "Trust". It was released through Get Reading. Phelan has had two books selected on the Get Reading list of "50 books you can't put down": Fox Hunt, and Alone: Chasers, for which he has done national tours.

The 2013 thriller The Spy began Phelan's series starring intelligence operative Jed Walker. He also began a 13-book series of young-adult novels about a series of adventurous teenagers, who are destined to save the world from an evil being, Solaris. He claims the latter is a mix of The Famous Five and Indiana Jones, titled The Last Thirteen and they are under contract with Scholastic Publishers for publication 2013-2014.

Phelan is represented in Hollywood by United Talent Agency and by the literary agencies Writers House and Curtis Brown.

The Last 13 series for teens

Jed Walker thriller novels

Lachlan Fox thriller novels

ALONE young adult trilogy

Non-fiction

Short stories

References

  1. ↑ "Biography". jamesphelan.com. Retrieved February 1, 2014.
  2. ↑
  3. ↑

External links

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