Michael Wilding (born 5 January 1942 in Worcester, England) 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.By the 1970s he was writing his own "exciting and innovative fiction". To date he has published more than twenty novels and short story collections.