About

Ilka Tampke is an award-winning author, academic and teacher. Her first two novels explore the druidic culture of Ancient Britain and its disruption by Roman colonisation. Skin (2015) was published in eight countries and nominated for the Voss Literary Prize and the Aurealis Awards in 2015. Songwoman (2018) was published in five countries and won the Small Press Network Book of the Year Award in 2019.

Photo by Kathy Mexted

Ilka was a Glenfern Fellow in 2012 and the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre Writer in Residence in 2019. She has taught workshops and presented at many festivals and organisations around Australia.

She teaches creative writing at RMIT University, La Trobe University and the Faber Academy, and is currently completing a PhD in ecopoetics at La Trobe University.

Her third novel, set in contemporary Australia, will be published by Summit Books in 2026.

Skin 2015. Text Publishing

Songwoman 2018, Text Publishing

How to Love the World 2026, Summit Books

Ilka is represented by
Jacinta di Mase Management