Tessa McWatt
Tessa McWatt is the author of seven novels and two books for young people. Her fiction and nonfiction have been nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award and a City of Toronto Book Award. She is co-editor of Luminous Ink and a winner of the 2018 Eccles British Library Award for her memoir Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging. Her memoir also won the Bocas Prize for Nonfiction 2020 and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction the same year. McWatt is an opera librettist working on a new full-length opera and is in the process of bringing John Berger’s novel To the Wedding to the screen. A professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, she lives in London, UK.
Writers & Books
Videos
Tessa McWatt on Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging, Weston Prize finalist
Award History
2025 - Finalist
Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
forThe Snag: A Mother, A Forest, and Wild Grief
Jury Citation
“Tessa McWatt’s The Snag is a beautiful exploration of love, grief, and the fragile ties that hold families together while also keeping them at a distance. With incredible detail and sharp emotional insight, McWatt crafts a story that is both intimate and universal, guiding readers through the complexities of memory, belonging, and loss alongside an environment in crisis. With layered characters and dynamic settings, this memoir gives the reader a deeply immersive experience in compassion and honesty, leaving a lasting reminder of how the smallest ruptures in life reveal profound truths about the resilience of the human spirit and the geographies which we inhabit.”—2025 Hilary Weston Prize Jury (Matthew R. Morris, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, and Niigaan Sinclair)2020 - Finalist
Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
forShame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging
Jury Citation
“Tessa McWatt masterfully explores the intersections of race, belonging, and body in Shame on Me. Through broad research and powerful storytelling, she travels through space and time to unravel false colonial narratives and reconstruct the stories of her grandmothers. She begins by transporting her global heritage of slavery, colonization, and economic migration to an all-white classroom in Toronto, where a mindless teacher demands: ‘What are you?’ That cruel question is at the heart of McWatt’s intelligent and provocative debunking of the economic and social roots of racism. Beautifully written and courageously told, McWatt’s memoir stitches together the fractured pasts of her ancestors with her own sense of displacement to create both a fuller understanding of herself and a path forward.” — 2020 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction jury (Helen Knott, Sandra Martin, and Ronald Wright)
Juror History
Works Recognized by WT