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John Flannagan By Garret John Flannagan Lives in Manly, Australia with his wife and son. He had a T.V. show called “Hey Dad!” He wrote the Ranger’s Apprentice series to encourage his son Mike to read more.

He’s written Ranger’s Apprentice book number 1, //The Ruins of Gorlan//, Ranger’s Apprentice book number 2, //The Burning Bridge//, Ranger’s Apprentice book number 3, //The Icebound Land//, Ranger’s Apprentice book number 4, //The Battle for Skandia// in America, and //The Oakleaf Bearers// in Australia, Ranger’s Apprentice book 5, //The Sorcerer in the North//, Ranger’s Apprentice book number 6, //The Siege of Mandicaw//, Ranger’s Apprentice book number 7, //Erak’s Ransom//, and Ranger’s Apprentice book number 8, //The Kings of Clonmel// (book number 9, Halt’s Peril is coming soon!!!)

__Did You Know?__

He began in advertising, worked in Sydney and London then back in Sydney again, with a brief stint filling in as Creative Director in a Singapore agency. Then he switched to television and worked for eight years on a comedy called “Hey Dad!”, among other shows.

In the nineties, he started doing corporate work: conferences, videos, corporate songs and so forth.

But all that time, he wanted to be an author. And he was writing books in his spare time.

The Ranger’s Apprentice series was born out of a set of short stories he wrote many years ago for his son Mike, to encourage him to read. He wrote and illustrated them for him and he’s tried to reproduce some of those original drawings through the website http://www.rangersapprentice.com/

There were twenty short stories in all and they served to develop his main characters – Will, Halt, Tug, and Horace. Interestingly, in those original stories, Horace was the villain and he and Will actually fought a duel with practice weapons.

When he expanded those original short stories into first one book, then two, then the eventual four that formed the first Ranger’s series, he rehabilitated Horace and he turned out to be Will’s best friend.

He’s married to a woman named Leonie. Early in 2007, he celebrated his 40th anniversary.