Ilka Tampke

Ilka Tampke was born in Sydney in 1969. She studied theatre at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst NSW and completed honours in performance at University of Western Sydney. Ilka directed the Sydney Women’s Festival, Mallacoota’s Festival of the Southern Ocean and numerous other arts and cultural events in Australia and UK before commencing post-graduate study in creative writing at RMIT, Melbourne.

Her first novel, Skin, was published in Australia, UK, US, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands and Vietnam. It was nominated for the Voss Literary Prize and the Aurealis Awards in 2016. Her second novel, Songwoman, can be read as a standalone novel or as a sequel to Skin.

Ilka teaches creative writing at RMIT University and is working on her third novel. She lives on five acres in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria with her partner, two children and too many animals.