Tony Birch

‘A natural storyteller.’

‘Birch evokes place and time with small details dropped in unceremoniously, and the stories are rife with social commentary.’

‘Birch has great empathy and a skilful pen to match.’

‘Tony Birch holds a rare place in Australian literature – a male writer focused on telling domestic and working class stories. His pages shimmer with the dirt of hard work, difficult choices, and everyday of life. The joys in reading his stories are intimate and quiet: a secretive embrace, a hand reaching to another, a warm blanket, a story, a memory shared. As simple as his narratives may appear though, the lives of Birch’s characters are rich and their journeys complex.’

‘Tony Birch welcomes readers into his fiction with gentle strength. He deals with issues that would provoke anger in most people. But he doesn’t write angry books. His work embraces readers in a way that is more likely to create change.’

‘Birch is a natural storyteller who makes every element work for him: plot and pace, character and dialogue, scene and setting. Here is a writer who is not afraid of his words – one who would rather have stories where before there was only silence.’

‘Birch's prose is clear-eyed and unpretentious, taking readers right to the heart of the story. And what a heart it is.’

‘A powerful and illuminating look at the lot of Australians who have fallen through the cracks in contemporary life … a timely reminder that there is a deep and complicated story of hidden Australia simmering beneath the surface and we are lucky that the brilliant Tony Birch is out there uncovering it for us.’