Scot Gardner became a writer after a chance meeting with a magazine editor while hitchhiking in eastern Australia. Magazine articles led to op-ed newspaper pieces and eventually novels. Scot's first fiction for young adults, One Dead Seagull, was published after he attended a writing conference with John Marsden. More than a decade later, his many books have found local and international favour and garnered praise and awards for their honest take on adolescent life. They include books like White Ute Dreaming, Burning Eddy and most recently Changing Gear, shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards; Happy as Larry, winner of a WA Premier's Book Award for young adult fiction; and The Dead I Know, winner of the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Older Readers. Scot lives with his wife in a vegetable garden in country Victoria.