Matthew Reilly

Matthew Reilly was born in Sydney on July 2, 1974. He is the author of the international blockbusters, Ice Station, Temple, Contest and, as of September this year, Area-7.

In 1994, at age 19, Matthew Reilly completed his first novel, a thriller called Contest (he wrote it while he was doing the first year of his Law degree). He offered Contest to all of the major publishers in Sydney - who all rejected it.

In late 1996, Matthew decided to publish Contest himself. His goal was to attract the attention of a major publisher. At a cost of $8,000, he produced 1000 copies of the book. It looked glossy and big budget - a blockbuster, mass-market paperback. Matthew then went to bookstores all over Sydney and most of them put his self-published book on their shelves. Some just slammed the door in his face.

In January of 1997, Cate Paterson, Commissioning Editor for Pan Macmillan Australia's Mass Market Fiction section walked into Angus & Robertson's Pitt St store in the heart of Sydney. She saw a glossy book on the front shelves: Contest.

She bought it, read it and loved it. She called Matthew and said, "Are you working on anything else?"

He had just started work on a new novel called Ice Station.

On the basis of the first few chapters of Ice Station Cate Paterson signed Matthew Reilly to a two-book deal with Pan Macmillan.

On December 31, 1997, at age 23, Matthew delivered the completed manuscript of Ice Station to Pan Macmillan. It took him 11 months to write - this book was completed during the final year of his Law degree (he ultimately graduated 31st out of 252 students).