I’ve always been drawn to places–creeks and rivers, coastal shorelines and marshes, woods and mountains–and to the stories that emerge from them. Much of my writing grows out of that fascination with the natural world and the ways people interact with, and are shaped by, the places they call home.
I grew up in western Massachusetts on a prep school campus where my dad taught English. When I was eight, my family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and that significant change from rural New England to the Southeast became an important part of how I came to understand landscape, community, and belonging. Those places continue to find their way into my fiction.
My forthcoming novel Tupelos was a finalist for the 2025 AWP James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel and the 2025 Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Prize. My short fiction has appeared in Southwest Review. I’m currently working on my second novel, set in northern New Hampshire and rural Florida.
I’ve spent my professional life working to protect the places I care about. I’m an environmental attorney at Conservation Law Foundation–a New England-wide environmental advocacy organization addressing the climate crisis and working to advance environmental justice–where I direct CLF’s New Hampshire office.
Those two parts of my life, writing and environmental advocacy, are not as separate as they might appear. For me, both begin with recognizing the power and importance of place, and paying attention to the ways people connect with, and are inspired by, nature and the communities where they live.
I live with my wife Lauren (and our dog Sam) in Portsmouth, on New Hampshire’s Seacoast, where in addition to enjoying the city’s vibrant music scene I try to be on, in, or near the water as much as possible.
I can be found at www.tomirwinauthor.com and will be writing the Substack newsletter North by Southeast, at substack.com/tomirwin3.
Regal House Publishing is proud to bring you Tom Irwin’s Tupelos in the summer of 2028.
