Lian Tanner (born 17 March 1951 in
Tasmania
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
, Australia) is an Australian children's author who lives in southern Tasmania.
Tanner is the author of the fantasy ''Keepers'' trilogy of children's books. ''Museum of Thieves'' the first book in the series was published in 2010. It has been published in Australia, the US and India and translated into German, Turkish, Chinese characters, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Ukrainian, Russian and Bulgarian.
Prior to writing fiction Tanner held a number of jobs including as a teacher in Australia and
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
. She has also worked as a journalist, editor and an actor.
Tanner was in the feminist folk band
The Ovarian Sisters in the 1970s and 80s.
Awards
Tanner's book ''Museum of Thieves'' attracted a number of accolades. It won the 2010
Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fiction
''Aurealis'' is an Australian speculative fiction magazine published by Chimaera Publications, and is Australia's longest running small-press science-fiction and fantasy magazine. The magazine is based in Melbourne.
History and profile
''Aureali ...
,
was a Notable Book in the 2011
Australian Children's Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 2010 Australian Independent Booksellers' Award and the Australian Speech Pathologists' Award.
In addition ''Museum of Thieves'' was selected by Bank Street Children's Book Committee as one of the Best Children's Books of the Year. It was one of the "50 Books You Can’t Put Down" in the 2011 Australian "Get Reading!" Campaign, and was named as a "White Raven" by the
International Youth Library
The International Youth Library (IYL) (, IJB) in Munich is a library that specializes in the collection of children and youth literature from around the world in order to make them available to the public, focusing on the international community. ...
in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
.
''City of Lies'', the second book in the ''Keepers'' trilogy, won the 2011 Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fiction. In 2020 Tanner and illustrator Jonathan Bentley won the
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for ''Ella and the Ocean''.
Tanner won the 2021 Children's crime novel
Davitt Award
The Davitt Awards are literary awards which are presented annually by the Sisters in Crime Australia association. The awards are named in honour of Ellen Davitt (1812–1879) who wrote Australia's first mystery novel, ''Force and Fraud'' in 186 ...
for ''A Clue for Clara.''
Books
''The Keepers''
* ''Museum of Thieves'' (2010)
* ''City of Lies'' (2011)
* ''Path of Beasts'' (2012)
''The Hidden''
* ''Icebreaker'' (2013)
* ''Sunker's Deep'' (2014)
* ''Fetcher's Song'' (2016); published as ''Battlesong'' in the United States
''The Rogues''
* ''Accidental Heroes'' (2017)
* ''Secret Guardians'' (2018)
*''Haunted Warriors'' (2019)
Standalone
*''Rats!'' (2009)
*''Ella and the Ocean'' (2019)
*''A Clue for Clara'' (2020)
*''Rita's Revenge'' (2022)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanner, Lian
Australian children's writers
1951 births
Living people
21st-century Australian novelists