AustLit

Max Dann was born in Yarraville, Victoria, the setting for most of his books for children and adults. Dann worked as a carpenter's apprentice, handyman, factory worker, and gardener before taking up writing full time.

Like many of his fellow television script-writers, including Doug McLeod, Brendan Luno, and Louise Fox, Dann got his start in television scripting skit comedy: in this case, Fast Forward. Around this time, he also contributed material to the scripts for the feature films The Big Steal and Spotswood, both set in Yarraville.

In the 1990s, Dann contributed scripts to a number of television programs across a variety of genres, including Wedlocked, Flipper, Full Frontal, Crash Zone, and SeaChange, as well as writing the film scripts for Mumbo Jumbo and Siam Sunset.

This blend of writing for both children's and adults' television programs continued after 2000: in that decade, Dann contributed scripts to programs such as Stingers, Worst Best Friends, CrashBurn, and McLeod's Daughters, as well as writing for numerous Jonathan M. Shiff Productions.

Most recently, Dann has produced scripts for Bed of Roses, and written the film scripts for
The Sunset Six (a film about a formerly successful rock star who is terrified of playing live, despite his band's desperation to stage a comeback) and Ektopos (a claustrophobic independent science-fiction film about a failing lunar mining colony).

His sense of the absurd is reflected in most of his books for children, particularly the series that features the characters Roger Thesaurus and Dusting. Dann won the Book of the Year Award of the Children's Book Council for Bernice Knows Best (1983). He has also written books for older readers and adults.