We are thrilled and delighted to formally & officially announce that Ilka Tampke has joined Jacinta di Mase Management!

Ilka is an award-winning author, academic and teacher. Her first two novels explored 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. Songwoman (2018) was published in five countries and won the Small Press Network Book of the Year Award in 2019.

On joining the JdM stable, Ilka says; I am thrilled and honoured to have been taken on by the delightful team at di Mase Management. Writing is such a solitary pursuit and when esteemed industry professionals, such as Jacinta and Danielle, are prepared to champion the work, it creates a sense of teamwork that is so refreshing after long years at the desk.

Ilka was the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre Writer-in-Residence in 2019 and has lectured and presented at many festivals and organisations around Australia. She teaches creative writing at RMIT University and is currently completing a PhD in Australian forest poetics at La Trobe University.

Ilka’s new manuscript will be a departure from the historical settings of her last two novels, and greatly fictionally influenced by her PhD studies. Jacinta and Danielle describe it as upmarket literary fiction, with a killer hook. Ilka says of her latest work-in-progress; This one is set deep in the eucalypt forests of Victoria, in the here and now, and grapples with how we are interwoven in both family and place … I am greatly looking forward to introducing my next book to the world under the care and guidance of such a fabulous team.

Welcome, Ilka! And publishers can expect to receive the official pitch from Jacinta and Danielle soon.