Tessa McWatt facts for kids

Tessa McWatt is a talented writer born in Guyana who grew up in Canada. She has written many books, including seven novels. Today, she is a professor who teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom. In 2021, she was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, which is a special honor for writers.

Early Life and Dreams

Tessa McWatt was born in Georgetown, Guyana. When she was three years old, her family moved to Canada. She grew up in Toronto. Her family loved being outdoors in Canada. They enjoyed camping, skiing, and canoeing together.

As a child, Tessa loved music, sports, and reading. Even when she was young, she knew she wanted to become a writer.

Learning and Growing

Tessa studied English literature at Queen's University. After that, she earned her master's degree at the University of Toronto. For her master's, she looked at how people from different backgrounds are seen in society. She also explored how people have different ideas about where they belong.

A Career in Writing

After finishing university, Tessa worked as an editor and a college teacher. She lived in different cities like Montreal, Paris, and Ottawa. In 1999, Tessa moved to London, England. There, she taught creative writing and continued to write her own books. She is now a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK.

Tessa has written many novels, short stories, and essays. She also wrote a special story for young adults called There's No Place Like... in 2004. Her first novel, Out of My Skin, came out in 1998. It tells the story of a Canadian woman who was adopted and is looking for her family roots.

Her second novel, Dragons Cry (2001), was recognized with nominations for the City of Toronto Book Awards and the Canadian Governor General's Literary Awards. These are important awards for Canadian books.

Some of her other novels include:

• This Body (2004)
• Step Closer (2009)
• Vital Signs (2011), which was nominated for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
• Higher Ed (2015)
• The Snow Line (2021), nominated for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize

Tessa also wrote the words for an opera called The Knife of Dawn. This opera was about a political activist named Martin Carter. He was held in prison in British Guiana in 1953.

She also helped put together a book called Luminous Ink: Writers on Writing in Canada (2018). She worked on this book with Dionne Brand and Rabindranath Maharaj.

In 2018, Tessa won the Eccles British Library Award for her book Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging. This book was also nominated for several other awards, including:

• The 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction
• The 2020 Canadian Governor General's Literary Awards for Non-Fiction
• It won the Non-Fiction Winner of the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature