John Anthony Flanagan was born on May 22, 1944, in Sydney, Australia. He has a wife, Leonie, and three children. Now they live in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly.
Before John Flanagan was famous for his fantasy and adventure stories, he did advertising and television commercials to make a living. He also co-created a television series, Hey Dad, with Gary Reilly. He actually started writing the Ranger’s Apprentice Series in the 1990s to encourage his twelve-year-old son, Michael, to read and to show him that heroes don’t have to be big and strong. The Ranger’s Apprentice series was originally made up of twenty short stories. John Flanagan has often said that the character of Will was inspired by his own son. Will had lots of similarities to Michael, and that made the books more interesting to him. John Flanagan’s first book, “The Ruins of Gorlan” was published in 2004. He wrote eleven Ranger’s Apprentice books in all, and won the Australian Publishers Association's Book of the Year for Older Children and the International Success Award for Erak’s Ransom, which is the seventh book in the series. Now, these books are sold in more than twenty countries.
This research has helped me understand more about John Flanagan’s writing. Now I know why the hero of the Ranger’s Apprentice, Will, is a small and skinny boy. It makes me believe that a hero doesn’t have to be big and muscular, but has to have courage and determination. And most of all, I hope John Flanagan keeps on writing to inspire us to dream and believe in ourselves.
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