Award-winning Australian writer Tim Winton to visit Newcastle

Award-winning Australian writer Tim Winton will be the special guest at a Newcastle Writers Festival event on October 19 at the University of Newcastle Great Hall. Winton will be visiting Newcastle for the first time to speak about his new book Juice, an epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit.

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The event is supported by the festival’s major partner, The University of Newcastle, and will be held from 6.00pm in the Great Hall at the Callaghan campus.

Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom said the author had been on her wish list of guests since she began planning the first festival in 2012. “From the beginning I hoped the festival would attract Australia’s best writers and Tim Winton was who I had in mind,” she said.

“Personally, his visit means a lot. I studied Tim’s debut novel An Open Swimmer for the HSC and was immediately drawn to his vivid and spare writing. I have read all his books, some of them more than once, and I know I’m not alone. A new Winton novel is cause for celebration.

“The festival is grateful for the support of the University of Newcastle which is enabling us to hold the event in the Great Hall so no one should miss out on a seat.”

Juice centres on two fugitives, a man and a child, who drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. As a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. The problem is, they’re not alone. So begins a searing, propulsive journey about survival, and how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.

Copies of Juice will be available to buy at the venue thanks to MacLean’s Bookseller and Tim Winton will be signing copies after the discussion.

The event will be held from 6.00pm on October 19 in the University of Newcastle Great Hall, University Drive, Callaghan. Tickets are $35/$25 concession. There will be limited door sales.

Bio

Tim Winton began his first novel, An Open Swimmer (1982), at the age of 19, while on a creative writing course at Curtin University, Perth. It won the Australian/Vogel National Literary Award, and he has since made his living as a full-time writer. Born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1960, he is the author of several award-winning novels, including Cloudstreet (1991), The Riders (1995), Dirt Music (2001), and Breath (2008).

For more information and to book visit https://www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/tim-winton/

To contact NWF director Rosemarie Milsom call 0403 041588 or email rmilsom@newcastlewritersfestival.org.au