Penguin Books Australia

Terry Denton is among Australia's busiest literary creative forces and his work, either as a writer, illustrator or both, can be found in popular children's titles such as Gasp!, Duck for Cover and Sucked In!

Born in Melbourne in 1950, the second youngest of five boys, Terry originally studied architecture, but, unhappy with that course, he left Uni and set about discovering what kind of artist he really wanted to be. Over the next seven years he tried animation, painting, theatre, etching, sculpture, cartooning, and worked part-time with a friend running a music shop.

In 1984 he wrote and illustrated Felix and Alexander (Hodder Headline). It was published in 1985 and won the CBC Picture Book of the Year in 1986. Since then he has illustrated more than 30 books, ten of which he has also written.

In 1991-92 Terry worked for the Australian Children's Television Foundation on Lift-Off, acknowledged as one of the most innovative children's TV shows produced in Australia. He spent a year helping devise the program, and another year designing the puppets and the look of the program. His work is characterised by a devious sense of humour, an adventurous and inventive drawing style and an informed flair for what interests and amuses kids.

Terry meets around 20,000 school kids throughout the year, generally talking, sometimes doing workshops and sometimes working with smaller groups designing and painting murals, and he is known to thousands of children as the illustrator of Andy Griffiths' 'Just' titles.

He lives by the beach with his wife and three kids, two dogs, a few chooks and a huge burial mound of previous pets. His hobbies include: bushwalking, ball sports, water sports, painting, strangling cats and visiting sick people in hospital.