Tamara Southward is a third-culture kid presently based in London, where her windows remain open in the spirit of Peter Pan, the novel that first sparked her curiosity in what it means to grow up. Her childhood spent in Switzerland involved playing film scores at the conservatory, writing novels, and traveling throughout Europe and Africa with her brother and Montreal-born parents, who are chiefly responsible for her education in books, film, music, and the outdoors.
Born a month after her co-author, Tamara has never known a day without her best friend, and their sisterhood is bound by a mutual love of storytelling and dancing to the Ballroom Blitz after family dinners. Tamara has been drawn to coming-of-age stories throughout her life, hence her obsession with authors Kazuo Ishiguro, Stephen King, and Donna Tartt, who each depict the transition to adulthood in ways that have never left her.
In film, her love for Quentin Tarantino stems from his wildly gripping stories that refuse to fit into one genre; she also holds John Hughes as somewhat of an idol, for the ways in which he reminds us what it’s like to be sixteen. Tamara has held a lifelong interest in the unique ways in which stories are told, and finds herself enthralled by the ways in which genres inform one another, writing one of her last university essays on the pursuit of the American Dream, as told by Karl Marx and her very favourite F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Aside from the YA novels and children’s books written throughout her life, Tamara equally enjoys writing creative nonfiction and short stories, such as her latest collection Friends in Cars, which describes her bonds with friends through hours on the road together. While Tamara is no stranger to moving, the shores of Lake Memphremagog are forever her home. There, her family cottage sits at the bottom of a ludicrously steep hill, whose inaccessibility in the Canadian winter is but a reminder of the life that promises to return with every summer.