Inga Simpson
Dr Inga Simpson is a novelist and nature writer. Her latest novel, Willowman (Hachette, 2022), about the art of cricket batmaking, was longlisted for the 2023 Indie book award for fiction and shortlisted for the BookPeople adult fiction book of the year. Her previous novel, The Last Woman in the World (Hachette, 2021) was shortlisted for the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award and the 2022 Indie Book Award for Fiction.
Inga’s acclaimed debut novel, Mr Wigg (Hachette, 2013) was published as a result of participating in the 2011 Queensland Writers Centre-Hachette Manuscript Development Program. Her second novel, Nest (Hachette, 2014), was longlisted for the Miles Franklin, the Stella Prize, and shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal. And Where the Trees Were (Hachette, 2016) was longlisted for the Miles Franklin, the ABIA Award for Fiction, The Green Carnation Prize, and shortlisted for the Indie Award for Fiction.
Inga’s first book-length work of nature writing, Understory: a life with trees (Hachette, 2017), was shortlisted for the Adelaide Writers Week prize for nonfiction. The Book of Australian Trees (Lothian, 2021), illustrated by Alicia Rogerson, is her first book for children.
Inga has PhDs in creative writing and English literature, with her most recent thesis exploring the history of Australian nature writing. Her essays and short stories have been published in Griffith Review, Wonderground, Chicago Quarterly Review, Openbook, Review of Australian Fiction, Clues, Writing Queensland, and The Dictionary of Literary Biography. She was also the winner of the (final) Eric Rolls nature writing prize for her essay “Triangulation.”
Inga lives on the far south coast of New South Wales. She is currently working on another book-length work of nature writing about the region and the impacts of Black Summer.