Award-winning author Tim Winton coming to Newcastle

Winton, who has published 30 books, will be visiting Newcastle for the first time to speak about his new book Juice, an epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit.

Juice will be published on October 1 by Penguin Books.

The event is supported by the festival's major partner, The University of Newcastle.

Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom said the author had been on her wish list of guests since the festival began.

"From the beginning I hoped the festival would attract Australia's best writers and Tim Winton was who I had in mind," she said.

"Personally, his visit means a lot. I studied Tim's debut novel An Open Swimmer for the HSC and was immediately drawn to his vivid and spare writing.

"I have read all his books, some of them more than once, and I know I'm not alone. A new Winton novel is cause for celebration.

The storyline for Juice is described as such: "Juice centres on two fugitives, a man and a child, who drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. As a refuge, this is the most promising place they've seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. The problem is, they're not alone. So begins a searing, propulsive journey about survival, and how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism."

Copies of Juice will be available to buy at the venue and Tim Winton will be signing copies after the discussion.

Tim Winton began his first novel, An Open Swimmer (1982), at the age of 19, while on a creative writing course at Curtin University, Perth. It won the Australian/Vogel National Literary Award, and he has since made his living as a full-time writer. Born in Perth in 1960, he is the author of several award-winning novels, including Cloudstreet (1991), The Riders (1995), Dirt Music (2001), and Breath (2008).