Several other books followed in the 1980s and he won his first Miles Franklin Award in 1984 for The Shallows. He travelled overseas with his wife and young family in the late 1980s, but his work retained a strong attachment to the coastal regions of Western Australia, especially the areas around which he grew up. He returned to Western Australia to purchase a house on the coast and won his second Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1992, for Cloudstreet.
Nearly twenty years later, he was to adapt this novel for the screen with American writer Ellen Fontana, as the three-part series Cloudstreet, which won him a Western Australian Premier's Book Awards (Scripts) and drew nominations for both AACTA Awards and Logie Awards.
Winton has written a number of children's books; his award-winning 'Lockie Leonard' series (published between 1990 and 1997) was adapted for television in 2007 asLockie Leonard.
Other adaptations of Winton's works include John Ruane's film of That Eye, the Sky in 1994 and James Bogle's film of In the Winter Dark in 1998.
Winton has continued to draw international readerships and awards. His novels have been published in England and the United States of America, translated into a number of languages and adapted for the stage, television, and film. Among many other awards, The Riders was short-listed for the Booker Prize and he received his third Miles Franklin Literary Award for Dirt Music in 2002.
A passionate campaigner for social and environmental causes, Winton has held the post of