Tobsha Learner is a British/Australian novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Her first collection of short stories, Quiver, sold 150,000 copies worldwide.[1] She has sold over 790 thousand books and is in translation in a number of countries. Her publishers have included Tor US, LittleBrown UK and HarperCollins AU. She is married with three stepsons, and while currently residing in New York has until recently divided her time between London and California.[2][3]
Learner was born in Cambridge, England and raised in London. She is the daughter of Anglo-Australian parents: Arnold Learner, an English-born mathematician, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in London at forty and his first wife Eva Learner née Rechts, social worker, feminist and humanist who was born in Palestine then migrated to Australia aged four. Learner's parents moved to England in the late 1950s. She has two siblings Adam and Ruth Learner.[citation needed]
Learner went to Paddington Comprehensive then onto Hornsey College of Art for a Foundation year. During that year she also trained as a marble carver in Carrara, Italy,[4] apprenticed to the Australian sculptor Joel Ellenberg. After which she migrated at eighteen to Melbourne, Australia. She then went to the Victorian College of the Arts to complete a BA in sculpture. But in her second year, began to return to her first love of theatre. Firstly through performance art then playwriting after becoming one of the founders of avant-garde theatre company 'Straight-face Productions.'[citation needed]
In 1989 Learner was one of the founding sponsors of the National Foundation for Australian Women.[5] Her "Literary papers, 1983-1992", are held by the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales.[6]
After completing her degree she moved to Sydney, where she did a playwright's course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art then on to AFTRS, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School for a screenwriting course. Her mentors included writer/teacher Paul Thompson and director Jimmy Sherman.[citation needed]
