John Marsden

John Marsden was born in Victoria, Australia, in 1950. From an early age, he went to many different primary schools and enjoyed the journeys into magical worlds that reading could provide. His teachers in Grade 4 and Grade 6 encouraged him to write, and at the age of nine, he decided he wanted to become an author.

For seven years, he attended The King's School Parramatta, a strict military school in Sydney, and from there went on to the University of Sydney. However, he soon decided that a career in law looked too boring, so he dropped out and drifted around for nearly ten years, trying different jobs and earning just enough money to support himself.

When he was 28, he began a teaching course, which he loved from the start. Embarking on a teaching career, he also became increasingly interested in writing, and in 1987 succeeded in getting his first book, "So Much to Tell You," published. A string of huge hits followed, highlighted by the Tomorrow series and Ellie Chronicles. John has now sold more than 2 1/2 million books in Australia alone, but is an international best-seller, with many major awards to his credit.

John's interest in education has never waned. In 1998 he bought the Tye Estate, 850 acres of natural bush on the northern edge of Melbourne, and later added the property next door. He ran enormously popular writers' courses and camps at Tye for eight years before starting his own school there, Candlebark, in 2006.

Candlebark is a P-8 school, which John has described as "somewhere between Steiner and The Simpsons." Its friendly, lively, and positive atmosphere has resulted in such early success that it has a four-year waiting list.