Coverdale was born in Alice Springs, and grew up in various places Australians call ‘remote’: on cattle stations in the Queensland channel country and Barkly Tableland, then in farm towns of the South Australian wheat belt. He read whatever the mail truck brought, and felt the pull of foreign lands. He travelled widely and lived for long stints in England and Poland.

He disappointed his father by choosing to work with words rather than cattle and has paid for his writing life by teaching in high schools and universities. He currently teaches academic writing and skills at Deakin University in Melbourne. He is the husband of an impetuous Pole and co-author of two marvellous boys who share his love of sport and the outdoors. 

His fiction and poetry have appeared regularly in Australian and international literary journals and anthologies, including Les Murray’s selection for Another English: Anglophone Poems from Around the World (2014). This website hosts a selection of his published work.