Tara June Winch

Tara June Winch is an Australian writer based in France. Her father is a member of the Wiradjuri nation from New South Wales. Winch grew up in Woonona, a coastal suburb located within the Wollongong region. Place and Indigenous identity both play a large role in most of her writing. Winch’s first novel, Swallow the Air, was published in 2006 to critical acclaim and won several Australian literary awards. In 2008, Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka mentored Winch as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which pairs young artists with craft masters in order to foster creative collaboration. In 2016, Winch published her story collection, After the Carnage, followed by her 2019 novel The Yield. In 2020, The Yield claimed seven national literary awards in Australia, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction. The novel has also been translated into numerous languages. Winch has contributed to numerous anthologies about her experience growing up as an Aboriginal woman in Australia. Additionally, she wrote the script for the Carriberrie, an Indigenous dance documentary, in 2018. Winch is currently working on her fourth book, Geography.