Andrew Tarrant
Andrew Tarrant was born Andrew Colin Jenkins in Melbourne, Australia on May 1st 1966. He has spent the majority of his life in Brisbane, Queensland along with twenty years in the Australian capital Canberra from 1980 to 2000. He has also spent time in the small town of Maclean in Northern New South Wales, where some of his family members still live.
As a child, Andrew had keen interests in geography and wildlife. Creative writing was his favourite subject at school, where he would write short stories, presenting them to teachers and reading them in front of classrooms. During his adolescent years, he played team sports, but didn’t pursue them as a player, preferring to become a knowledgeable spectator.
Andrew met a large number of Vietnamese immigrants in his Canberra workplace during the eighties where he became a close friend to people who had experienced the horrors of war and death in their country. This experience launched the first inspiration for Bright Fire. It expanded his world and gave him a perspective on life few people could have encountered. At the time, he often wondered if a book could ever be written about it, but lacked the courage and life experience to try it himself.
After many years having experienced things such as travel, raising a family, the struggle to make ends meet, being self-employed as a taxi owner-lessee in Brisbane, and dealing with unscrupulous people online, Andrew took it upon himself to fictionalise some experiences with the writing of Bright Fire.