Will Elliott came to international attention when The Pilo Family Circus, his debut novel, won five Australian literary awards. In America, the book was short-listed for the International Horror Guild Award for best novel. Elliott began working on the book at nineteen, when he dropped out of law school and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Influenced by writers as diverse as Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, and H. P. Lovecraft, his writing is at turns creepy, violent, spare, and wickedly imaginative. Now twenty-nine, Elliott is working on a follow-up novel and has recently completed a memoir. He lives in Brisbane, Australia.