-
Get a Free Issue
of our Ezine!
Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
D.M. Cornish studied illustration at the University of South Australia, where he began to compile a series of notebooks, beginning with #1 in 1993. He had read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels, The Iliad, and Paul Gallico's Love of Seven Dolls. Classical ideas as well as the great desire to continue what Mervyn Peake had begun but not finished led him to delineate his own world. Hermann Hesse, Kafka and other writers convinced him there were ways to be fantastical without conforming to the generally accepted notions of fantasy. Over the next ten years he filled 23 journals with his pictures, definitions, ideas and histories of his world, the Half-Continent.
It was not until 2003 that a chance encounter with a children's publisher gave him an opportunity to develop these ideas further. Cornish was sent away with the task of delivering 1,000 words the following week and each week thereafter. Abandoning all other paid work, he spent the next two years propped up with one small advance after the other.
The Monster Blood Tattoo series, published in North America under the title The Foundling's Tale, includes Foundling, Lamplighter and Factotum. D.M. Cornish lives in Adelaide, Australia.
D M. Cornish's website
This bio was last updated on 03/20/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
What made you decide to write this book?
Strange as it may sound, my publisher asked me to write the first few thousand words that became MBT: Foundling after seeing one of my notebooks fall out onto the floor from my bag. This notebook - one of 23 at the time (I'm currently in 28) - is full of ideas for the Half-Continent, it got her interest and all things went from there. How is it I even had a publisher, you might ask? Well because I'm an illustrator by training and trade, and was working on a picture book with them. Before this though, in the early years of invention, I harbored a secret, barely-expressed hope I might write a book or more some day of one or more of the inhabitants of the Half-Continent. It's been profound and wonderful to have that wish realized. There is a God, it seems.
I really enjoyed reading about all of the monster fighters, but how did you think up the Lahzar's?
Hmmm. They are a coagulation, a final percolation, a boiling down to essentials of an older concept I had, set in our own world, in modern times, of a dark counter-culture of people with strange abilities (for example: growing spines, spitting acid, teleporting, hanging of walls and so much more) a grim and gritty super-hero type thing ...
Frank Beddor had already had a couple of intense careers, a professional skier (two-time freestyle world champion) and filmmaker (producer of the 1998 hit There’s Something About Mary) before deciding to become an ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Foundling
Try:
The Looking Glass Wars
by Frank Beddor
Laurie Forest lives deep in the backwoods of Vermont where she sits in front of a wood stove drinking strong tea and dreaming up tales full of dryads, dragons, and wands. The Black Witch is her first novel. (more)
If you enjoyed:
Foundling
Try:
The Black Witch
by Laurie Forest
We recommend 8 similar authors
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
.png)
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
