Tim Winton

Tim Winton was born in Subiaco, Western Australia on 4 August, 1960. He grew up in Karrinyup, a northern suburb of Perth, Western Australia,[2][3] and moved with his family at the age of 12 to the regional city of Albany.[4]

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".[5] His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. Winton published Cloudstreet in 1991, which properly established his writing career.[5] He has continued to publish fiction, plays and non-fiction material.

Winton has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece,[6] but currently lives in Western Australia.[7] He met his wife Denise when they were children at school. When he was 18 and recovering from a car accident, they reconnected as she was a student nurse. They married when Winton was 21 and she was 20, and had three children together.[6] They live on the coast north of Perth.[7]

Winton’s younger brother, Andrew Winton, is a musician and a high school chaplain. His younger sister is Sharyn O'Neill, who in 2007 assumed the position of Director General of the WA Education Department.[8]

As his fame has grown, Winton has guarded his and his family's privacy. He rarely speaks in public yet he is known as "an affable, plain-speaking man of unaffected intelligence and deep emotions."[9]

In 1995, Winton's The Riders was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, as 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 regularly appears in lists of Australia's best-loved novels.[10]

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.[11] 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.[12]

The Tim Winton Young Writers Award, sponsored annually since 1993 by the City of Subiaco, recognizes young writers in the Perth metropolitan area.[13] It is open to short story writers of primary school and secondary school age. Three compilations have been published: Destination Unknown (2001)[14] Life Bytes (2002),[15] and Hatched: Celebrating Twenty Years of the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers (2013). The latter features the winning story from each year of the award from 1993 to 2012.[16] Winton is the patron of the competition.[17]

Winton has been named a Living Treasure by the National Trust[18] and awarded the Centenary Medal for service to literature and the community.[19] He is patron of the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers sponsored by the City of Subiaco, Western Australia.[20] Curtin University has named a lecture theatre in his honour.[21]

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."[22]

Dr Jules Smith for the British Council wrote about Winton,

"His books are boisterous and lyrical by turns, warm-hearted in their depictions of family life but with characters that often have to be in extremis in order to find themselves. They have a wonderful feeling for the strange beauty of Australia; are frequently flavoured with Aussie vernacular expressions, and a good deal of emotional directness. They question macho role models (his books are full of strong women and troubled men) and are prepared to risk their realist credibility with enigmatic, even visionary endings."[23]

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.

Winton is actively involved in the Australian environmental movement. He is a patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) and is involved in many of their campaigns, notably their work in raising awareness about sustainable seafood consumption.[24] He is a patron of the Stop the Toad Foundation and contributed to the whaling debate with an article on the Last Whale website.[25] 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.[26]

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."[27]

In 2016, species of fish from the Kimberley region was named after him.[28]

In March 2017 Winton was named patron of the newly established Native Australian Animals Trust.[29] He has always featured the environment and the Australian landscape in his writings. The trust was established to help research and teaching about native animals and their environment. Associate Professor Tim Dempster, School of Biosciences is quoted as saying, "Australia has a unique and charismatic animal fauna, but our state of knowledge about it is poor. Indeed species can go extinct before we even know of their existence. We have much to learn from our fauna, and a pressing need to do so."[30]

• Four time Miles Franklin Award winner, 1984, 1992, 2002, 2009
• Two time Booker Prize nominee 1995, 2002
• Winton was included in the Bulletin's "100 Most Influential Australians" list in 2006[53]
• Australian National Living Treasure 1997[18]
• Centenary Medal for service to literature and the community 2001[19]
• Friends of the National Library of Australia Celebration Award 1999[54]
• Australian Society of Authors Medal for Community work re 'Save Ningaloo Reef' campaign 2003[54]

Full list of awards and nominations:

An Open Swimmer

• 1981 Australian Vogel National Literary Award[55]

Shallows

• 1984 Miles Franklin Award,[56]
• 1985 Joint Winner Western Australian Premier's Book Award - Fiction[17]

Scission and Other Stories

• 1985 Western Australian Council Literary Award[17]
• 1985 Joint Winner Western Australian Premier's Book Award - Fiction[17]

Minimum of Two and Other Stories

• 1988 Winner Western Australian Premier's Book Award - Fiction[17]

Jesse (picture book)

• 1990 Winner Western Australian Premier's Book Award: Children's Book[17]

Cloudstreet

• 1991 NBC Banjo Award for Fiction[17]
• 1991 Western Australian Premier's Book Award Fiction[17]
• 1992 Miles Franklin Award[56]
• 1992 Deo Gloria Award[17]

• http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A28121 Austit - Awards

External video
Tim Winton laments the power of toxic masculinity on young men, Matter Of Fact With Stan Grant, ABC News