​

​

L. A. Hammer has a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art Painting and Literature Studies. He was admitted to the Degree of Masters of Arts Writing and Literature (Specialising in Creative Writing) by Deakin University in 2020, after preparing an exegesis of a new King Arthur mash up, with Cleopatra, Robin Hood, Dracula and Sun Wukong from The Journey to the West, in a world where animals fight beside humans and Magicians are a rare breed. The exegesis was complemented with studies into Arthurian Celtic Legends of 12th to 13th century literature and focusing on religious and psychoanalytical symbolism in such stories. His readings included Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, Freud’s Interpretation of
Dreams, and Carl Jung’s Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. More recent research includes Nicholas J. Higham’s King Arthur: The Making of the Legend, and Stephen Knight’s Reading Robin Hood.
 

Hammer has walked the Kokoda Track at age 16 and has swum with white-tipped reef sharks on the Great Barrier Reef at a similar age. His childhood holidays included many trips to Queensland, including Expo ’88, and a crocodile cruise at night where he played spotlight boy at the front of the boat. He fed the giant milkfish at the Darwin Aquascene at
about age 8. He has many fond memories of those days, as well as his high school
studies at a country college where he flourished in his love for art, reading and writing, drama, though his passion for reading fantasy novels began at a much younger age.