Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 06 May
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM
James Patterson’s name is synonymous with blockbuster success – it promises to deliver a thrill a minute, and to thoroughly entertain. Like Australia’s own megaselling author Bryce Courtenay, the thriller king’s background is in advertising, and he knows what audiences want. As well as the suspense that cemented his fame, he’s written successful children’s books, romances and historical fiction.
Patterson has been the planet’s bestselling author since 2001, with more than 300 million copies of his books in print and several television deals in the works. ‘Perhaps no author in literary history has more seamlessly melded commerce and creepiness to create an international brand,’ wrote Vanity Fair.
Despite his well-earned reputation for armchair adventure and easy reading, Patterson has a serious side, too. He’s an outspoken critic of Amazon, after his publisher was caught up in a dispute that famously meant Hachette writers were penalised by the online behemoth. ‘If Amazon is the new American way, then maybe it has to be changed,’ he said. And he’s been involved in major philanthropic donations to support independent booksellers and young readers in the US and the UK.
Find out the process behind his books, how he amassed the fortune fiction built, and how he plans to wield his impressive influence – as an author who outsells both J.K. Rowling and Dr Seuss.
James Patterson will be in conversation with Rafael Epstein.
Featuring
James Patterson
Author James Patterson has consistently ranked as the world’s number one selling author on Nielsen’s BookScan, and continued to thrill readers with his crime and romance series. But there has been one significant change since his last visit to Australia in 2004: James Patterson is now a children’s author. James Patterson is on a mission to get kids reading.
When James discovered that his son Jack was a reluctant reader, he took matters into his own hands and started writing kids’ books. Middle School, Maximum Ride and House of Robots are some of the series that followed. Now James has more number one children’s books than any other living author.
‘Reading is one of the building blocks of life and can take you to another world. It encourages imagination and helps with school,’ says James, who has famously donated millions around the world to get kids reading.
To coincide with his 2015 visit, James will be launching Middle School: Rafe’s Aussie Adventure, which has been co-written with Australian author Martin Chatterton. Full of zombies, disasters and dropbears, and featuring everyone’s favourite trouble-maker, Rafe Katchadorian, the fifth book in the Middle School series is sure to be another hit.
Adult readers haven’t been forgotten. When James is in Sydney, he’ll be catching up with Kathryn Fox, the Australian co-author of Private Sydney, which is released in August. In the tenth book in the Private series, even the world’s top detective agency is finding it tough to trace a man who doesn’t exist.
Rafael Epstein
Rafael Epstein is a journalist who has worked in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Timor, Indonesia, Europe and the Middle East.
He has covered national elections in the UK and Australia, East Timor’s vote for independence in 1999, the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, the 2005 London bombings, and the arrest of several high profile war crimes suspects in the Balkans.
Rafael won a Walkley Award for his reporting on the links between police and Melbourne’s underworld wars. He won a second Walkley for his coverage of the Mohammed Hanif case, the Indian born doctor charged over his connections to the failed bombings in London in 2007.
He has also worked at the Investigative Unit at the Age, focusing on politics as well as Australia’s special forces and their role in Afghanistan. Rafael currently hosts the Drive program on 774 ABC Melbourne. His first book Prisoner X is published by Melbourne University Press in March 2014.