Tim Winton

Tim Winton
Born 4 August 1960 (1960-08-04) (age 56)
Karrinyup, Western Australia
Occupation Novelist
Nationality Australian
Genre Literature, children 's literature, non-fiction, short story

Timothy John "Tim" Winton (born 4 August 1960) is an Australian novelist and short story writer.

Life

Timothy Winton was born in Karrinyup, Western Australia,[1] but moved at age of 12 to the regional city of Albany.[2]

Winton has been named a Living Treasure by the National Trust[3] and awarded the Centenary Medal for service to literature and the community.[4] He is patron of the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers sponsored by the City of Subiaco, Western Australia.[5]

He has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece but currently lives in Fremantle, near Perth, with his wife and three children.

His younger brother, Andrew Winton, is a musician and high school chaplain. His younger sister is Sharyn O'Neill, the current Director General of the WA Education Department.

Literary career

Whilst at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer, which won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, launching his writing career. He has stated that he wrote "the best part of three books while at university".[6] His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his writing career was properly established.[6] His novel, Breath, was published in 2008. His latest novel is Eyrie, published in 2013.

Acclaim

In 1995, Winton’s The Riders was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, as later was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award a record four times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992), Dirt Music (2002) and Breath (2009). Cloudstreet is arguably his best-known work, regularly appearing in lists of Australia’s best-loved novels.[7]

He is now one of Australia's most esteemed novelists, writing for both adults and children. All his books are still in print and have been published in eighteen different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio.[8] On the publication of his novel, Dirt Music, he collaborated with broadcaster, Lucky Oceans, to produce a compilation CD, Dirt Music – Music for a Novel.

Young writers award

The Tim Winton Young Writers Award, sponsored annually by the City of Subiaco, offers children across the Perth metropolitan area the opportunity to develop their writing skills.[9] It is open to primary school and secondary school-aged short story writers. Two compilations have been published, Destination Unknown (2001) and Life Bytes (2002). Winton is the patron of the competition.

Style and themes

Winton draws his prime inspiration from landscape and place, mostly coastal Western Australia. He has said "The place comes first. If the place isn't interesting to me then I can't feel it. I can't feel any people in it. I can't feel what the people are on about or likely to get up to."[10] His themes often centre on an issue which is described by the character Gail in The Turning when she says that "every vivid experience comes from your adolescence".[10]

Winton revisits place and, occasionally, characters from one book to another. Queenie Cookson, for example, is a character in Breath who also appears in Shallows, Minimum of Two and in two of the Lockie Leonard books.

Environmental advocacy

Winton is actively involved in the Australian environmental movement. He is a patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) and is passionately involved in many of their campaigns, notably their work in raising awareness about sustainable seafood consumption.[11] He is a patron of the Stop the Toad Foundation and contributed to the whaling debate with an article on the Last Whale website.[12] He is also a prominent advocate of the Save Moreton Bay organisation, the Environment Defender’s Office, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the Marine Conservation Society, with which he is campaigning against shark finning.[13]

In 2003, Winton was awarded the inaugural Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Medal in recognition for his work in the campaign to save the Ningaloo Reef.

Winton keeps away from the public eye, unless promoting a new book or supporting an environmental issue. He told reviewer Jason Steger "Occasionally they wheel me out for green advocacy stuff but that's the only kind of stuff I put my head up for."[14]

In 2016, Winton had a species of fish from the Kimberley region named after him.[15]

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

Novella

Plays

In collections of short stories and essays

Winton’s short stories have been published in numerous publications and widely anthologised:

Children's books

Non-fiction

Dramatisations

Adaptations

Critical works about Winton

Awards and nominations

Full list of awards and nominations:

References

  1. ↑ "Tim Winton (Author profile), Jenny Darling & Associates". Retrieved 2007-11-10.
  2. ↑ Steger, Jason (2008) "It's a risky business" in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25–27 April 2008, Books p. 29
  3. ↑ Living Treasures list, National Trust website
  4. ↑ Australian Government Centenary Medal website
  5. ↑ Tim Winton Award
  6. 1 2 Steger, Jason (2008) "It's a risky business" in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25–27 April 2008, Books p. 28
  7. ↑ Your Favourite Australian Book poll, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
  8. ↑ Tim Winton (Author profile), Jenny Darling & Associates
  9. ↑ "Tim Winton Award for Young Writers". City of Subiaco. Retrieved 29 February 2012.
  10. 1 2 cited by Steger, Jason (2008) "It's a risky business" in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25–27 April 2008, Books p. 29
  11. ↑ AMCS Sustainable Seafood Guide
  12. ↑ "I like men", The Last Whale blog, November 2007
  13. ↑ For the love of sharks, Australian Geographic, 23 July 2010
  14. ↑ cited by Steger, Jason (2008) "It's a risky business" in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25–27 April 2008, Books p. 28
  15. ↑ "'A great honour': New fish species named after author Tim Winton". ABC News. Retrieved 2016-01-04.

Further reading

Tim Winton: Critical Essays. edited by Lyn McCredden and Nathanael O'Reilly. UWA Publishing 2014.

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