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James McKenzie Watson writes fiction with a focus on health and rural Australia. His novel Denizen won the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize and will be published by Penguin Random House in July 2022. Denizen also won a 2021 Varuna Residential Fellowship and a 2021 KSP Residential Fellowship, and was highly commended in the 2020 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowships and shortlisted for the 2017 Kingdom of Ironfest prize.
His short stories have been recognised in competitions including the International InkTears Flash Fiction Contest, the Newcastle Short Story Award and the Grieve Writing Competition, and featured in publications such as Baby Teeth Journal and Brave Voices Magazine. He contributes regularly to the Newtown Review of Books.
He co-hosts the writing and health podcast James and Ashley Stay at Home with author Ashley Kalagian Blunt and works as a nurse in regional New South Wales.
Denizen - coming July 19 2022
one of the best Australian novels I’ve ever read.
Lee Kofman, author of The Dangerous Bride and The Writer Laid Bare
I can’t remember the last time a book rocked me to my core like Denizen did.
Michelle Tom, author of Ten Thousand Aftershocks
Denizen is a novel everyone will be talking about.
Simon McDonald, PRH ABA Young Bookseller of the Year
James McKenzie Watson doesn’t pull his punches at all.
David Vann, internationally bestselling author of Legend of a Suicide
QUITE SIMPLY A MASTERPIECE.
Lyn Yeowart, author of The Silent Listener
Confronting and powerful and in a league of its own.
Dinuka McKenzie, author of The Torrent