Bestselling American author Justin Cronin - in his only Canberra appearance between the Melbourne and Brisbane Writers Festival - discusses his life and books with Colin Steele, particularly his recently completed post-apocalyptic Passage trilogy.

The Weekend Australian has commented that the trilogy,The Passage (2010), The Twelve(2012) and The City of Mirrors (2016), is "part dystopian essay, FBI procedural, vampire saga and military novel. There are echoes of John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, Bram Stoker, Tom Clancy and Stephen King". King himself has commented that the trilogy "is remarkable for the unremitting drive of its narrative, for the breathtaking sweep of its imagined future, and for the clear lucidity of its language". Film rights have been sold to Ridley Scott.

Harvard educated Cronin is also the author of Mary and O'Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. He has been a Fellow of the US National Endowment for the Arts and is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University.

Colin Steele is an ANU Emeritus Fellow and is Convenor of the Meet the Author series.