Trent Dalton

Trent Dalton is an Australian novelist and journalist.

After being recommended by a QUT tutor, Dalton was hired in 2000 as a writer for Brisbane News, a free weekly magazine.

He then worked as a journalist for The Courier-Mail.

, he works as a staff writer for The Weekend Australian Magazine.

In 2011 Dalton published Detours: Stories from the Street, a book containing profiles of 20 people he had interviewed who were living on the street, or at risk of becoming homeless.

He is best known for his 2018 semi-autobiographical novel Boy Swallows Universe.

Dalton was born in Ipswich, Queensland, the youngest of four sons.

He spent his early childhood living with his mother and stepfather in Brassall.

Both sold heroin and spent time in jail.

When he was seven years old, his mother was sent to prison for two years for smuggling drugs.

Dalton spent the following 12 months living with his paternal grandparents.

After that he lived with his father in a Housing Commission house in Bracken Ridge, a suburb on the northern outskirts of Brisbane.

For a few years in their teens, Dalton and one of his brothers lived with his mother.

After high school, Dalton studied journalism for one year at University of Southern Queensland then another year at Queensland University of Technology.

In 2018 he published the semi-autobiographical novel Boy Swallows Universe through 4th Estate, which was longlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Award.

In May 2019 the television adaptation rights for Boy Swallows Universe were secured by Anonymous Content, Chapter One and Hopscotch Features.

A seven-episode limited series was commissioned by Netflix and released in January 2024.

The Queensland Theatre Company also developed a play from the novel, which premiered in September 2021 at the Brisbane Festival.

In 2020 Dalton published his second novel, All Our Shimmering Skies, which is also centred around words and storytelling.

In 2021, Dalton published Love Stories, a collection of love stories gathered from interviews with people.

Dalton's third novel, Lola in the Mirror, was released in October 2023.

Dalton has two daughters with his wife Fiona.