Alison Croggon is an award-winning novelist, poet, opera librettist and critic who lives in Melbourne. In 2015 she was awarded a two-year Australia Council Fellowship for Literature. She is the author of the acclaimed fantasy series The Books of Pellinor, which has been published in five European countries and sold more than a half a million copies in the UK and US alone. Other books include: The Bone Queen, Black Spring and The River and The Book. Her poetry has been widely published in journals both in Australia and overseas, and is included in many major Australian anthologies. Alison’s theatre writing includes several opera libretti and her critical work has been published widely, including in The Monthly, Overland, Australian Book Review, Radio National and the Guardian. She was Melbourne theatre critic for the The Australian, until 2010, and Melbourne critic for the national weekly news magazine The Bulletin from 1989-1992.