Caroline Barron is an award-winning author, story coach, presenter, and manuscript assessor. With a Masters in Creative Writing and a journalism degree, and a past life owning a modelling agency, she is in demand for her dynamic workshops on storytelling, creativity and writing. She is a Creative New Zealand funding assessor, worked for Auckland Writers Festival as their development manager, and has worked extensively with New Zealand Society of Authors. Jill Nicholl’s in the New Zealand Herald wrote, ‘Caroline Barron is a woman whose prose is up there with this country’s finest female authors.’ Sam Brooks from The Spinoff praised Caroline as a ‘great storyteller’ with a ‘gift for visceral images’.
Caroline’s work has been published in Condé Nast Traveller, North & South, Awa Wahine, Landfall, New Zealand Herald and more. Her memoir, Ripiro Beach (Bateman Books, New Zealand), won the 2020 New Zealand Heritage Literary Award. Dame Fiona Kidman wrote that Ripiro Beach is ‘one powerful read….confronting…a very brave book.’ In 2021 she was awarded a Creative New Zealand Arts Grant to write her debut novel, Golden Days (Affirm Press, Australia, 2023), which was then was touted in the NZ Listener as one to watch for book-to-film. The Sydney Morning Herald praised Golden Days for its mix of ‘sharp dialogue with delicate and deceptive reflection, the decadent 90s zeitgeist haunted by how recollections of youth (and its friendships) can change, sometimes drastically, over time.’
Caroline was a Michael King Writers Centre writer in residence (2023), shortlisted for the Surrey Hotel / Newsroom residency (2020), and recipient of the New Zealand Society of Authors CompleteMS Programme (2018). She was winner of the 2018 NZ Heritage Writing Awards (short prose section) and in the same year, shortlisted for the NZ Heritage Writing Award. She was highly commended for the 2017 NZ Heritage Writing Competition (for short prose). In 2016 she received second place in the Travcom Best New Travel Writer Cathay Pacific Travel Media Awards for her story ‘Ocean Bay’. Her story ‘Sam’s Nana’ was the Auckland regional winner and highly commended for National Flash Fiction Day 2020 and her story ‘Pain’s Back’ was highly commended for the Webb-Pullman Poetry Award 2024. In 2015, Caroline was the recipient of the NZSA Lilian Ida Smith Award.
Caroline is an engaging presenter who has written and taught dozens of workshops (online and in person) on many aspects of writing and storytelling. Topics include writing memoir, being a literary citizen, writing 3D characters, book marketing, storytelling as a pathway to excellence, creativity and leadership and effective writing for business. She has appeared as author, MC, chair and presenter at numerous festivals and events including Auckland Writers Festival, WOMAD, Crimes on the Coast, Hamilton Book Month, NZSA Manawatū Roadshow, Nelson Arts Festival, Queenstown Writers Festival and in Australia, Affirm Press Roadshows in Sydney and Melbourne.
Currently, Caroline is working on a ‘biblio-memoir’ which is a documented year of a booklist of re-readings and also a portrait of life, including long-term chronic back pain and surgery, building on the success of her award-winning memoir, Ripiro Beach.
Caroline resides between Auckland and Northland’s Ripiro Beach, with her husband and two young daughters.
Links
Caroline Barron’s website
NZ Society of Authors writer page
High Spot Literary author page
Affirm Press writer page
Bateman Books writer page www.batemanbooks.co.nz
Caroline’s documented year of re-reading on Instagram
The Spinoff review of Golden Days (April, 2023)
