Michael Wilding is a British writer and academic who has spent most of his career in Australia. As an academic, he has had a distinguished career as a literary scholar, critic, and editor. Since the 1970s he has earned a reputation as an "important critic and scholar of Australian literature". From the late 1960s he was one of a group of prominent writers, editors and publishers who promoted the "new writing" movement in Australia. To date he has published more than twenty novels and short story collections.