AUTHOR

Veny has been running writing courses and short workshops with children, teenagers and adults for more than ten years.

He teaches in schools, community groups and universities, and brings an innovative approach to all his classes by combining interests in writing stories, novels, films and songs. He likes to specialise in finding the creative spark in each individual writer and allowing their writing to develop in their own unique directions. This could be into prose, film, theatre or music.

Veny started writing when he was 17 or 18, and he finished his first novel while studying Law. He finished his second novel while studying Psychology. It took him 14 years and ten unpublished novels before his first book hit the shelves.

He has studied at the University of Queensland, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Queensland University of Technology, and the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. The son of Sicilian migrants, he has travelled and worked widely throughout the world. In 1995, 1997 and 1999 he lived and worked at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris. He is frequently invited to teach writing, and speak about his work, in Spain and Germany.

Veny's first published book was a very slim collection of short stories called JUMPING AT THE MOON, which was equal runner-up in the Steele Rudd Short Story Award.

Since then he has written many acclaimed and best-selling novels. These are THE LONELY HUNTER, ROMEO OF THE UNDERWORLD, MY BEAUTIFUL FRIEND, STRANGE RAIN and FIREHEAD (shortlisted for 2004's "One Book, One Brisbane" campaign). His books have been translated into Korean, German, French, Dutch, Hebrew, and also published in the USA.

His last novel, THE VOLCANO, won the Queensland Premier's Award for Best Fiction Novel and was short-listed for the Courier Mail Book of the Year.

His work for younger readers includes the illustrated books THE GHOST OF LOVE STREET and THE GHOST OF DEADMAN'S BEACH, and the picture book THE VERY SUPER ADVENTURES OF NIC AND NAOMI.

"Armanno writes with a robust confidence in his own capacities as a story-teller. It is not undeserved. Taking risks in a disciplined way, he shows respect for a deep immersion in the skein of myth, legend, recent and discreditable history that is his legacy."

- The Bulletin.