John Birmingham grew up and was educated in Ipswich, Queensland. He freelanced as a journalist for ten years taking feature commissions from a wide variety of magazines such as Playboy and Rolling Stone and between writing books, he has continued to work as a full time columnist, blogger and essay writer. His first book, He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (1994) was made into a play, film and a graphic novel. Other works include Leviathan, the Unauthorised Biography of Sydney (1999) and his World War 2 series that include Weapons of Choice (2004), Designated Targets (2005), Final Impact (2006) and his latest book, Without Warning (2008).