Seán Cullen has been a comedian for over twenty years. He is a three–time Gemini Award Winner, twice Nominated for the Edinburgh Fringe Perrier Award and has won multiple Canadian Comedy Awards. He has performed on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Just For Laughs, Comedy Central and The Comedy Network. As a writer he has contributed to several animated series Maurice Sendak’s Seven Little Monsters, 6Teen, Grossology, Best Ed and Monster Warriors. He wrote and produced his own series for CBC The Seán Cullen Show.

He began writing the Hamish X series for Penguin Canada in 2004 and has published three books in the series: Hamish X and The Cheese Pirates, Hamish X and the Hollow Mountain and Hamish X Goes To Providence Rhode Island. Seán is currently developing the books into an animated series for Teletoon and is hard at work completing his new series of books set in Toronto, The Chronicles of the Misplaced Prince. The first book in the series, The Prince of Neither Here Nor There, was published in August 2009.

Reading has always been one of Seán’s greatest passions. After discovering Tolkein’s “The Hobbit” in fourth grade, Seán has devoured books from every genre. Seán believes that reading and learning is fuel for his creative processes and he draws on all of the material his brain soaks up and uses it to infuse his work in all fields. When approached to write the first Hamish X books, Seán was presented with an interesting and irresistible challenge. Writing stand–up material and television scripts is very different from writing a novel. Television is really a collaborative process involving many minds and many revisions. Stand up material is very fluid and given to transformation as it impacts with the live audience. Writing a novel is a very solitary business. One is left alone with the work and with only occasional input from an editor. Feedback from a reading audience is months if not years in coming. With that said, actually having completed a book was incredibly satisfying for Seán. The books are by far the proudest achievement of his career.

Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates has been nominated for several awards, winning The Rocky Mountain Book Award, and The Arthur Ellis Award in the Juvenile Crime category.

To book an event or interview with Seán, contact Vimala Jeevanandam at 416-928-2419 or vimala.j@ca.penguingroup.com