Peter McDonald was born in Melbourne, one of the lucky generation to have come of age in the late 1960s. He worked for many years as a social worker, community worker and academic in Tasmania and Western Australia before throwing it all in to help establish a food and music pub in Hobart. After seven years of exhilarating highs and stultifying lows, he sold up and has since revelled in a series of jobs including fruit and vegetable selling, festival organising, labouring on building sites, census collecting and part-time lecturing. Along the way he managed to wander the world, help raising two children and fill a bottom drawer with unfinished manuscripts. He currently lives in Hobart.