Martin Edmond grew up in a remote mountain village in New Zealand’s King Country. After university, he joined travelling players Red Mole, touring extensively and internationally in the 1970s. He spent another five years working as a lighting designer for rock ‘n’ roll bands. Since 1981 he has lived in Sydney, working as an author and a screenwriter.

He has written the feature films Illustrious Energy (1988), Terra Nova (1998) and 33 Postcards (2011); his books include The Autobiography of my Father (1992), The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont (1999) and Chronicle of the Unsung (2004), which won the Biography category at the 2005 Montana Book Awards. Subsequently he has published Luca Antara (2006), Waimarino County (2007), The Supply Party, Zone of the Marvellous (both 2009) and Dark Night – Walking with McCahon (2011), which was shortlisted in the 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

Martin has just completed You Must Remember This, a memoir of his parents’ courtship and marriage during World War II. His next book will be an account of the cryptic life and strange death of the convict artist Joseph Lycett.