13 Facts About John Collee

John Collee studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and began practising medicine in Cambridge, Bath, and Bristol.

John Collee subsequently worked in emergency medicine and worked as a doctor in countries like Gabon, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka.

John Collee then wrote a second novel titled A Paper Mask, which was published in 1987.

Rights to the novel were acquired for a film adaptation, and John Collee wrote the screenplay for director Christopher Morahan, who released the film Paper Mask in 1990.

Around the same time The Rig was published, John Collee became a weekly columnist for The Observer and wrote about travel, science and medicine for the next six years.

John Collee met his wife Deborah Snow on the way to Azerbaijan; he was escorting a shipment of medical aid when he met Snow, who was a TV correspondent in Moscow, Russia for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The book was unfinished, but when John Collee went to the Solomon Islands for a year to work as a doctor, Snow went with him, and they had their first child, Lauren, on the islands.

John Collee worked in London for a short time before moving to Sydney, Australia in 1996 to meet Australian directors like Peter Weir and George Miller.

For Weir, John Collee wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and for Miller, he wrote the Oscar-winning Happy Feet.

John Collee wrote an early draft of The Legend of Tarzan for Warner Bros.

John Collee has written for radio, for example Brogue Male with Paul B Davies.

John Collee is one of four co-founders of the Australian production company Hopscotch Features.

John Collee is a board member of the Australian branch of climate activist group 350.