John Flanagan (author)

Australian fantasy author

John Anthony Flanagan (born 22 May 1944) is an Australian fantasy author best known for his medieval fantasy series, the Ranger's Apprentice series, and its sister series, the Brotherband Chronicles. Some of his other works include his Storm Peak duology, as well as the adult novel The Grey Raider.

John Flanagan was born in Sydney, Australia on 22 May 1944. He graduated from Waverley College with plans to become a writer. As he grew up, he changed careers and got a job at an advertising agency. He originally planned to become a trainee copywriter, but the agency instead assigned him to train as a media researcher. While working as a media researcher trainee, he wrote an offensive poem directed toward one of his senior executives. Eventually, the poem made it to the desk of one of the company's directors. Flanagan was called into the director's office where he complimented Flanagan's writing skills and offered him the job of trainee copywriter. After working in the advertising agency for 20 years, Flanagan entered the TV industry and co wrote a sitcom called Hey Dad !. He started working on what would become the Ranger's Apprentice series in the 1990s. The series originated as twenty short stories for his twelve year old son, Michael. Flanagan wanted to encourage his son to read and hoped that he could do so by convincing Michael that the stories were children's book ideas that his father wanted to test out. In fact, several characters in Flanagan's books are based on real life people close to him. Will, the main character in the series, was initially based on Michael. Small, agile, and his love of climbing were all things that Michael and Will shared. Evanlyn, one of the other main characters, was loosely based on Flanagan's daughter Kitty. Finally, Halt, Will's older teacher, was also based on Flanagan's sixth grade teacher. His son fell in love with the series and began asking for more of the stories.