Become a member

Loading

4

MIN READ

October 15, 2025

Member Spotlight: Emily Tsokos Purtill

Our October member spotlight is Emily Tsokos Purtill, a Western Australian writer and former lawyer of Greek heritage who lives in Perth/Boorloo.

After being awarded for her short fiction as a young writer, including winning the Tim Winton Award for Outstanding Achievement and twice winning the Katharine Susannah Prichard Award for Young Writers, Emily pursued a career in law and worked as a lawyer in Perth and Paris. Emily returned to writing when she lived in New York in 2013–2014.
 
Emily was the recipient of an ASA Award Mentorship in 2023 and she won the Griffith Review Emerging Voices Competition for her essay Know Thyself  in 2024.
 
Her short fiction has been published in Griffith Review, Westerly, and Science Write Now.
 
Emily’s debut Greek-Australian novel Matia (UWA Publishing, 2024) was recently won the 2025 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for an Emerging Writer.
Emily Tsokos Purtill

What inspired you to begin a writing career?

I have always been a writer and loved reading, but it wasn’t really clear to me in my younger years how to turn it into a career. After many years of being a lawyer and after having children, it became apparent that if I really wanted to transition out of law and into a writing career then I would need to prioritise writing, which I eventually did.

Matia coverWhat does it mean to you to be awarded the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award in the Emerging Writer category for your novel Matia?

It’s a huge honour. It means so much to me that Matia resonated with the judges. The award ceremony was held in the State Library of Western Australia. For the most part I grew up in Perth and I would go to that library in the 90s and dream about becoming a writer and having my book on the shelves, so it really felt like a full-circle moment. I still can’t quite believe it happened. 

You were the recipient of a mentorship through the ASA’s Award Mentorship Program. What was that experience like and how did it benefit your work and your career progression?

I won the ASA Award Mentorship in 2023 for a children’s novel I was working on at the time. The program enabled me to focus on the draft with a wonderful mentor, author Kate Ryan, who is based in Melbourne. Kate provided excellent guidance on the manuscript and I really valued her guidance both editorially and on the Australian writing and publishing industry more broadly. I’m doing an event to celebrate Matia’s anniversary at Readings in the State Library of Victoria later this month, so I’ll be travelling to Melbourne and will finally get to meet Kate in real life.
 
Every opportunity, such as mentorship programs, improves your writing and builds your professional network. I am really grateful for the ASA mentorship experience.
 

What do you know now that you wish you had known as you started your career?

I wish I had taken more time before sending out work because some of it wasn’t ready yet. Through a lot of critical reading, I’ve developed a sense of when something has been written and published too quickly – and the corollary, when something has been reworked to death. It’s a very fine line, but in the early days of trying to get published I think it’s best to err on the side of multiple drafts.
 
I also wish I’d thought a bit more strategically about which stories meant the most to me, because I probably would have saved a lot of time if I hadn’t worked on things that I didn’t love as much as others. I’d always wanted to tell the stories of four generations of Greek-Australian women across time, inspired by my family and heritage, in a non-linear narrative and that book became Matia. 
 
I also think it’s important to back yourself and not give up even if your manuscript is rejected multiple times. Not every reader or publisher is going to like your writing or ‘get’ your book (particularly if it’s non-linear, has four female protagonists, and is not entirely set in Australia!) or think it should be published. You just need one person to understand and love your story and in my case it was the wonderful Kate Pickard, Publishing Manager at UWA Publishing. 
 

Which Australian authors and illustrators are influential for you?

Sally Morgan, Melina Marchetta, Gwen Harwood, Antigone Kefala, Fotini Epanomitis, Shirley Hazzard, Madeleine St John, and Jessica Au.

Why are you a member of the ASA?

The ASA has fully supported me in every step of my publishing journey. I am particularly impressed with its strong and proactive advocacy on current issues concerning authors and illustrators.
 
I also love the seminars and try to attend as many as I can to learn about parts of the industry that still feel opaque to me. I appreciate that these are held online with the playback option (as my timetable is such that I can’t always watch them live).
 
I really enjoy belonging to the ASA and hope to continue to be a part of the community in years to come.
 

Find out more about Emily Tsokos Purtill at emilytsokospurtill.com and @emilytsokospurtill.

BECOME A MEMBER

Related Articles