Ian Townsend is a journalist and radio documentary maker who worked for many years with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National network. He has won numerous awards for journalism, including four national Eureka Prizes for science and medical journalism and an Australian Human Rights Award.

His first novel, Affection, based on the 1900 outbreak of plague in Townsville, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, the Colin Roderick Award, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the National Year of Reading, and was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC award.

His second novel, The Devil’s Eye, based on the 1899 Bathurst Bay cyclone, was long listed for the Miles Franklin Award.

His latest book, Line of Fire, is non-fiction, combines family history with military history and geology to tell the story of the civilian and military disaster that befell Rabaul at the start of the Pacific War.

Ian lives in Brisbane, Queensland, with his wife, Kirsten, and their three daughters.