Bio
Nathan M. Farrugia, born in Melbourne, Australia, is a thriller writer.
Nathan’s first book was a choose-your-own-adventure book he wrote when he was ten. Much like actual life, it had multiple endings and made absolutely no sense.
At the age of sixteen, Nathan embarked on his first novel. This would take him through ten drafts before he either lost his mind or found a literary agent, whichever came first. (As it turns out, he did find a literary agent. Jury’s still out on the losing his mind part though.)
At 18, Nathan joined the Australian Army, serving in infantry and reconnaissance. When the Afghanistan invasion began, he realized his desire to uphold liberty was naïvely misplaced.
Nathan discharged from the Army and took up studying Film and Television, which led him to Professional Writing & Editing at RMIT. It wasn’t long before he found himself rubbing shoulders with highly praised authors such as Chris Womersley (author of The Low Road and Bereft) and Toni Jordan (international best-selling author of Addition and Fall Girl). Despite being half the age of his fellow students, he was not deterred. In fact, this gave Nathan exactly the kind of honest and intelligent feedback that he needed to steer his first novel in the right direction.
After completing his studies, Nathan delved briefly into stunt work and acting, where he undertook a lead role in a comedy sketch TV series before realizing he needed a real job.
He ended up working as a video editor, colorist and copy writer, where he earned the nickname Fagoogoo because no one could pronounce Farrugia. In his spare time, he began training with a Swiss Army instructor, unlearning most of his military and martial arts training and beginning anew with Systema, a little-known Russian combat system and closely guarded secret of the Spetsnaz special forces. Nathan also attended to his novel in the early hours of the night. With plenty of coffee. (He drinks tea now, because the eye twitching scared away the little children.)
It wasn’t long before Nathan’s writing caught the eye of author and literary agent Xavier Waterkeyn.
Seeing potential in Nathan’s work, Xavier mentored him through the final draft. “You’re the journeyman,” Xavier said. “I’m just the fellow with the lantern.”
A fellow who certainly knew the way, being one of very few Australian writers to have sold over 1.5 million books, including the internationally best-selling and hilariously controversial Where’s Bin Laden? picture book.
The Chimera Vector will be published by Momentum (Pan Macmillan Australia) in April 2012.
Nathan is currently working on the sequel to The Chimera Vector, while his agent, Xavier, is probably writing his fifty-fourth book. Nathan hopes to learn mastery of space-time so he can catch up one day. And meet dinosaurs.
