Alan Baxter (author)
Alan Richard Baxter (born 18 April 1970, Sussex, United Kingdom) is a British-Australian author of supernatural thrillers, horror and dark fantasy, and a teacher of kung fu. He has published seven novels, several novellas, three collections, and over 80 short stories in anthologies and magazines in Australia and overseas. He has also published a further seven novels co-written with American action/adventure author, David Wood. He has won four Australian Shadows Awards from eight nominations, and has also been nominated for seven Ditmar Awards and eight Aurealis Awards. Writing career. Baxter was born in 1970  in Crawley, Sussex, UK. At the age of 7, his family moved to Surrey where Baxter remained until emigrating to Australia permanently in 1999 after 2 years of world travel. His earliest writing was an infamous short story in school, aged 7. His interest in speculative and genre fiction persisted from childhood into adulthood. He maintains that everyone reads speculative fiction as children, but at some point some people choose to stop. Drawn especially to dark fiction and horror, Baxter cites among his influences people such as Clive Barker, H P Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Kaaron Warren, and Stephen King. Baxter  has also cited comic books as being big influences on his work, in particular work like Garth Ennis’s “Hellblazer”and Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman”. Baxter’s dark urban horror thrillers often feature realistic violence, often gleaned from first-hand experience, the author having spent a lifetime training and teaching martial arts. Baxter has often expressed his love of mashing genres and writing across formats. His work regularly addresses themes of death and mortality, and the justices and injustices of a life well-lived. Aside from writing, the other main professional focus of Baxter’s life has been martial arts. He  says that running up against bullies in schooldrove him towards competitive martial arts in his childhood, and that he found a lifelong path there. After studying a variety of arts, he is now a practitioner and teacher of Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu. He runs the Illawarra Kung Fu Academy and is an international master and Fire Dragon Disciple of Grandmaster Chen Yong Fa. Baxter has competed in a number of competitions in the UK, Australia, and China. In 1996 he won the British Wutan Federation National Championship title in the UK. Baxter’s writing accolades include being an eight -time finalist in the Aurealis Awards, an eight-time finalist in the Australian Shadows Awards and a seven-time finalist in the Ditmar Awards. He won the 2014 Australian Shadows Award for Best Short Story (“Shadows of the Lonely Dead”), the 2015 Australian Shadows Paul Haines Award For Long Fiction (“In Vaulted Halls Entombed”), the 2016 Australian Shadows Award for Best Collection ("Crow Shine"), and the 2019 Australian Shadows Award for Best Collection ("Served Cold"). He is also a past winner of the AHWA Short Story Competition (“It’s Always the Children Who Suffer”). In November 2020, Baxter became President  of the Australasian Horror Writers Association. He’s also a Full Active Member of the US-based Horror Writer’s Association. Baxter is married to Glover Prize-winning Australian artist, Halinka Orszulok. They have one son.