Biography

TJ Clark holds a Master of Creative Writing from Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English and History from James Cook University. He has previously worked as a tour guide, barman, taxi driver, disability support worker, life coach, and truck driver. His crime thriller novels explore the intersection of mental health and the gritty realities of life on society’s margins. He has published scholarly articles on writing and creativity’s role in mental well-being and spoken at international conferences on the subject. When not writing fiction, Clark works part-time as an NGO and government mental health consumer advisor and advocate.

TEDx Talk on Creative Recovery

In 2014, while studying for a Bachelor of Arts at James Cook University (Cairns, Queensland), I was busy writing and editing Crack Falling for a 2015 release. The Cairns Institute invited me to speak at their inaugural TEDx event on ‘creative recovery’. In this video, I open up about my mental health condition and journey to becoming a writer and author. I’m involved in mental health advocacy and like to explore ideas and representations of madness in some of the characters in the novels I write. I believe that by writing characters that have mental health conditions, I am helping to reduce stigma and discrimination, providing authentic insight into madness and recovery.

“Crack Falling is about that. To the extent that it draws on a personal story it has features of autobiography; to the extent that it is about someone else, a confected identity moving through fluid realities, it is fiction. It is self as artist and image – each quizzically looking back at the other. It is a book and a bookmark – the current page, the current reality, the journey.”

Professor Ernest Hunter

PUBLICATIONS

Poetry and Self RecoveryDownload
Poetry – Recovery and BeyondDownload
Poetry Through SoulDownload
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TJ Clark has presented ideas on creativity and recovery from mental illness at several Creating Futrures conferences. His personal story of severe mental illness spans 30 years, and in his life, he has not let his illness define him. He is an advocate for good mental health, a mental health consumer representative and a consultant to NGO’s and the government on the realities of lived/living experience of mental illness. His passion for writing and learning his craft has seen him sit on numerous community panels and present his debut novel at the 2016 Tropical Writers Festival in Cairns, Australia. His personal story is filled with determination and grit – it is a story of overcoming obstacles, which he is happy to share with others. 

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