BRIEF
BIOGRAPHY:
Gary David Crew was born in Brisbane, Queensland, on the 23rd September, 1947. Gary was very ill as a child and since he was too sick to play
sport he began to read widely. He has never lost the habit. Gary attended
State Primary and High Schools in Brisbane [English and Art were his favourite
subjects] leaving school aged 16 to become a cadet Civil Engineering Draftsman.
Gary had always loved drawing and believed that drawing roads and bridges
would satisfy him. But after he had graduated from the Queensland Institute
of Technology and worked in a drawing office for ten years as a design draftsman,
he became bored and decided to become an art teacher. Gary had married by
this time and he and his wife Christine had two daughters, Rachel and Sarah.
Having to support children meant that Gary could not take up the three year
Art scholarship, so he turned to English teaching. He finished his university
studies while he was teaching, gaining a Master of Arts in Literature from
the Queensland University.
Christine
and Gary's son, Joel, was born in 1978 and completed their family.
Gary
began to write when he was a High School teacher. His first audience was his
Year 10 Manual Arts Boys' class 'who never seemed to be able to find books to
suit them'. Although Gary never thought that he would be published and become
an author - he loved teaching too much - his first novel, The Inner Circle,
was published in 1985. In 1989, when his many literary studies and interests
became too much, Gary gave up teaching to write full time.
Gary now divides his time between developing a country garden, reading, watching videos, writing, editing and lecturing in Creative Writing at the University of the Sunshine Coast.