Deadly, Unna? is a rites of passage story about friendship, racism and Australian Rules Football. The superb writing and characterisation vividly captures the essence of small town life within a mixed-race community. Teenage readers immediately took to the complex narrative and appealing narrator and the book quickly became a bestseller.

The sequel, Nukkin Ya, was published in 2000 to great acclaim. Phillip then set about combining the events of both books for his screenplay of the controversial film Austrlian Rules, which was included in the official selection for the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and for which he won an AFI for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Phillip has also written The Worst Team Ever and Born to Bake, stories for younger readers. Jetty Rats, published in 2004, is a great read for upper primary/early secondary students. Set in a rural coastal town, jetty Rats charts the growing pains of thirteen year old Hunter Vettori. Phillip’s first foray into adult fiction is the The Build Up, a page-turning crime thriller which is also a wonderfully detailed evocation of Darwin: a hustling, exotic melting pot of cultures. And he has created an unforgettable character in Detective Dusty Buchanon.

Phillip has worked at a number of jobs including computer programming in Europe, teaching in Thailand and counting fish in Brazil. Approaching the age of forty, and having tried just about everything else, he decided to start writing.

His fantastic student presentations cover this journey as well as the process of adapting Deadly Unna? to the big screen and his own inspirations and motivations as an author. He now lives in the Blue Mountains with his wife and three children.

The Build Up was published in August 2008, by Pan Macmillan. It is a contemporary crime novel set in the Northern Territory, bearing a more mature extension of Phillip's traditional themes of race relations, tension, and regional life. It is Phillip's first novel for adults.

To learn more about Phillip, visit www.penguin.com.au

"Phillip was very easy to talk to and he communicated with the students in an engaging, friendly manner … [he] gave us a great insight into the man and the writer. All were very impressed with what he had to say and how he spoke to the students at their level … he was brilliant!"
- Sylvia Behan, Staughton College, April 2008

"Phillip Gwynne's visit today to Glen Waverley S.C. to speak to approx 300 Year 8's was a great success. The teachers and students in both sessions are richer for the experience. Already feed back from students and staff regarding hearing about Phillip's experience as a writer and script writer and his life experience is very positive.
Year 8 study "Deadly Unna" as a set text this term, so his visit was perfectly timed and for me the experience of seeing the "engaged" faces of some of our "reluctant readers" and "less engaged" students as well as our "always engaged" Year 8 student population was very rewarding."
-Cheryl Slocombe, Glen Waverley Secondary College, July 2008

"Students were unanimous in their enthusiastic response to Phillip. His candid, honest and revealing story of his life struck a chord with many of our pupils who left the session determined to read his books. You could have heard a pin drop in our hall when he was talking - no mean feat with for a group of year 9 students!"
- Anne Shanley, Xavier High School

"The greatest strength of DEADLY, UNNA? is its portrayal of Australian family life written cleverly with a blend of old Aussieisms interspersed with teenage lingo. It is fast-moving, humorous, and intriguing, a fair dinkum page turner which will provide hours of enjoyment. Brilliant."
- Margaret Clark, Geelong Advertiser