Former Central Queensland University Student, Jason Nahrung, is celebrating the publication of his debut dark fantasy novel ‘The Darkness Within'.

The writing was on the wall when Jason Nahrung studied a Bachelor of Arts majoring in creative writing at CQU, but it took another twenty years for that ambition to arrive on the book shelf. 

The former Morning Bulletin journalist, launched his debut novel, in Brisbane last month and German language rights for the supernatural thriller, published by Hachette Australia, have already been sold.

The tale of witches and vampires living in modern-day Sydney was conceived when Nahrung's girlfriend, Mil Clayton, living in Melbourne, emailed the opening scene to him at home in Brisbane. 

The result was a 40,000-word novella, totally unscripted and unplanned, as the pair set out purely to entertain each other with plot twists and suspense while they courted across three states.

"I've always been a writer," says Jason. "I grew up on a cattle property south-west of Maryborough where my imagination could run rampant, fuelled by the books in the school library and urged on by parents who believed in the value of reading and writing. At uni in Rockhampton - I was there in the mid-80s during the transition from institute of advanced education to university college, before it became UCQ - I majored in history and communications but made sure I took creative writing with the irrepressible Wally Woods. By then, I was already entrenched in the writing of the fantastic, and I kept beavering away on stories after I graduated and entered the world of newspaper journalism, first in Maryborough and then in Rocky before moving to Brisbane in 1998. It was the latter move, and access to the Queensland Writers Centre, that really made me knuckle down and pursue professional publication."

Jason, a Brisbane newspaper journalist, has been an active member of the Brisbane writing scene since moving to the city. A director of the Aurealis Awards and winner of the William Atheling Jnr Award for Criticism or Review, he also has three short stories due out this year.

He is currently pursuing his Masters in Creative Writing through QUT as well as working on several supernaturally themed novels.

Further details on The Darkness Within are available at: http://www.jasonnahrung.com/