About the Author

Gregory Day is a writer, poet and musician whose debut novel, The Patron Saint of Eels (Picador 2005), won the prestigious Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 2006 and was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for a first novel. His second novel, Ron McCoy's Sea of Diamonds (Picador, 2007), was shortlisted for the 2008 NSW Premier's Prize for fiction, and his most recent novel, The Grand Hotel, was chosen by the Herald Sun as the Best Australian Novel of 2010. In 2011 Gregory's story 'The Neighbour's Beans' was the joint winner of the inaugural Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. He is a regular contributor to the literary pages of The Age newspaper and he lives on the southwest coast of Victoria, Australia.