Matt Zurbo  Matt Zurbo (born 17 July 1967) is an Australian writer of children's literature, young adult fiction, sports writer and novelist. Matt Zurbo grew up in the inner north of Melbourne, before moving to the Otway Ranges, where he worked in the bush and wrote for most of his adult life. Matt's first works to be published were short stories in Pascoe Publishing. His first full work was in 1996 with his children's picture book, entitled "Blow Kid Blow!", by Penguin Books and illustrated by Mambo artist Jeff Raglus. He also self-published a book of poetry, entitled "Writing By Moonlight". In 1997 Zurbo along with illustrator Dean Gorissen published his second picture book entitled "I Got a Rocket!". It was later turned into an animated TV series of the same name by SLR Productions and won the 2008 Emmy Award for new approaches, daytime children's programming. He also released his first young-adult novels in 1997, with "Idiot Pride" and "Flyboy and the Invisible", both published by Penguin Books. "Idiot Pride" was a short-list nominee for the 1998 award and went on to be listed in Victoria's 150 Greatest Books List as a part of that state's 150 year celebrations. In 2004 he released his third young-adult novel, entitled "Hot Nights, Cool Dragons" which was a runner-up for the 2004 Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel. He also released a compilation CD of the same name, featuring artists including Cris Wilson, Tony Gould, Vasco Era, the Exotics and Gian Slatter, bands that inspired parts of the book. In 2008 Zurbo returned to children's picture books, releasing three with publisher Hachette. "Fred the Croc", with Sarah Dunk and "Lulu's Wish" with Ben de Quadros-Wander. In 2009 he teamed up with Dean Gorissen again to produce "My Dad's a Wrestler", based loosely on his stand-up comedy character, the "Perculator". He then moved to Windy Hollow Books, releasing "Tommy Tuckers" (2012), a collection of three short children's stories with Alex Tyers. His next children's book, "I Love Footy", painted by himself, was released in 2013. Matt's last book with Windy Hollow was "Moon" (2016), illustrated by Sadami Konchi. Zurbo spent 3 years travelling around Australia working and interviewing 141 famous and infamous AFL/VFL football legends from the 1940s to the present day, for his 700-page book, "Champions All, an Oral History of AFL/VFL Football", published by Five Mile Press, 2016.