About Me

Dr Christo­pher Richard­son is a writer and teacher from Syd­ney, Australia.

Dr Richard­son has a BA (Hons) in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture and Mas­ter of Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty (with Mer­it) from the Cen­tre for Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney. He also has a Mas­ter of Teach­ing (Sec­ondary) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Eng­land. Dr Richard­son grad­u­at­ed with a PhD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney for a the­sis inves­ti­gat­ing the child­hood poli­cies and prac­tices of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Korea (North Korea). 

Richard­son is the author of acclaimed YA fan­ta­sy nov­el Empire of the Waves  (Pen­guin) and six non-fic­tion pic­ture books from Scholas­tic. He is cur­rent­ly writ­ing a nov­el about North Korea. Dr Richard­son teach­es Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture, IB Glob­al Pol­i­tics, and Phi­los­o­phy and World Stud­ies at San­ta Sabi­na Col­lege in Sydney.

Richard­son’s research has been fea­tured in Sino-NK, The Guardian, The Wash­ing­ton Post, El Pais, the BBC World Ser­vice, BBC News Mag­a­zine, ABC Radio Nation­al, ABC Week­end Break­fast, 3AW, SBS Radio, The Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, UPI, The Dai­ly Tele­graph (Syd­ney), Radio Free Asia, Voice of Amer­i­ca Kore­an, the Dai­ly Mail,  Izves­tia, Triple J, Obser­vador (Lis­bon) and Vice. Dr Richard­son has a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in the his­to­ry of Chris­tian­i­ty in north­ern Korea. Richard­son is also research­ing the life of Cyril Birnie, the Aus­tralian man whose lega­cy of peace is the extra­or­di­nary nation­al park in Hakone, Japan. Dur­ing the Covid-19 Pan­dem­ic, he researched the impact of the Span­ish Flu in Korea. Richard­son posts about North Kore­an his­to­ry and pol­i­tics at North Lights.

Dr Richard­son has guest lec­tured under­grad­u­ate and post­grad­u­ate IR and Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies class­es at the Aus­tralian Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney, Uni­ver­si­ty of New South Wales, and Bond Uni­ver­si­ty. In 2013 Richard­son co-direct­ed Voic­es in Exile: Panop­tic Per­spec­tives in Syd­ney and Can­ber­ra, a film fes­ti­val inves­ti­gat­ing North Kore­an human rights and cul­ture.  In 2017, he joined the Hon. Michael Kir­by to explore reli­gious free­dom in North Korea for the St. James’ Insti­tute in Syd­ney.

ABC Week­end Breakfast

In July 2015, Pen­guin pub­lished Richard­son’s debut nov­el Empire of the Waves to won­der­ful reviews. Junior Books + Pub­lish­ing described the book as “beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, action packed and engag­ing.” Since the pub­li­ca­tion of Empire of the Waves he has spo­ken fre­quent­ly at schools, libraries, and lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals about his writ­ing, and is avail­able to book for your event. 

At school Richard­son’s favourite sub­jects were Eng­lish, Ancient His­to­ry, Dra­ma, and Latin. With­out a doubt, Latin had the deep­est impact on his intel­lec­tu­al devel­op­ment.  For his Hon­ours the­sis Richard­son researched the poet­ry of Edward Lear, and he writes chil­dren’s verse of his own. You can read or lis­ten to them free on this site.

Dr Richard­son is the author of six non-fic­tion pic­ture books in the X‑Zone series from Scholas­tic. These include: Pirates, Spe­cial Effects, The Beat Goes On, So You Want To Be An Astro­naut?, Sun Struck and You Ate That! With the X‑Zone series he ful­filled the ambi­tion of a life­time and inter­viewed a NASA astronaut!

Dr Richard­son is an avid read­er, so is steeped in the world of books and lit­er­a­ture, and can’t wait to share his own sto­ries with you. He is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a new instal­ment in the adven­tures of Anni Tidechild and Duck Knife­tooth, ten­ta­tive­ly titled Empire of the Waves: Sea of Fire. Oth­er works-in-progress include a dystopi­an sci-fi thriller set in a divid­ed future Aus­tralia, enti­tled Occu­pa­tion Zone, and a nov­el about North Kore­an child­hood called Chil­dren of the Sun.  

Some of Richard­son’s oth­er pas­sions are cin­e­ma, music, the­ol­o­gy, and pon­der­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of extra-ter­res­tri­al life. His favourite places in the world are India and Korea. On this site you will find a some­times odd con­coc­tion of inter­ests and influ­ences, but they all coa­lesce in Richard­son’s mind to make some sem­blance of uni­ty. But then again, per­haps uni­ty is overrated…

Per­form­ing with Azart aboard el Bar­co de los Locos in Barcelona

Inter­view with Christo­pher Richardson

The Book of Beasts: Ani­mal & Human Nature in Chil­dren’s Literature

S.D.G.