Frankie McMillan is a New Zealand writer who has published six books of poetry and fiction. My Mother and the Hungarians, and other small fictions (Canterbury University Press), which was longlisted for the Ockham Award for fiction. She has twice won the New Zealand Flash Fiction Day competition and also won the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including the NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship (2019), the Michael King writing residency at the University of Auckland (2017), Ursula Bethell residency in creative writing at the University of Canterbury (2014) and the CNZ Todd New Writer’s Bursary (2005). Her work was selected for two consecutive years for Best New Zealand Fiction anthologies (2008 & 2009) and Best New Zealand Poems in both 2013 and 2015 (online, Victoria University).

Her short story collection, The Bag Lady’s Picnic and other stories, was published in 2001 by Shoal Bay Press. ‘This writing and these stories,’ Weekend Herald Penelope Bieder wrote, ‘announce the arrival of a strong new voice on the New Zealand literary scene’. Frankie’s first poetry collection, Dressing for the Cannibals (Sudden Valley Press, 2009), was described by Christchurch Press Book News as ‘full of surprises that quicken the heart as well as the head’. Glasgow Review of Books described her second collection, There are no horses in heaven (Canterbury UP, 2015), as the ‘most startling poetry book I have read for years’. Frankie’s fifth collection The Father of Octopus Wrestling, and other small fictions (CUP, 2019) was listed by The Spinoff as one of the 10 best New Zealand fiction books of 2019 and shortlisted for the NZSA Heritage Book Awards.

Frankie’s latest work The Wandering Nature of Us Girls (CUP, 2022) was published with the support of Creative New Zealand. In settings as unexpected as a European post-war circus or an inflatable pool in suburban Aotearoa, the enduring bonds of family, real or imagined, take centre stage. Frankie has given us a collection that is poignant, revelatory and bitter sweet, a collection which balances transgression and wit, showing a cast of unmoored characters with her signature warmth and compassion.

Frankie teaches at the Hagley Writers’ Institute in Christchurch. She spends her time between Ōtautahi Christchurch and Mohua Golden Bay.

 

Links

Canterbury University Press writer page

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Hagley Writers’ Institute website

Radio NZ interview discussing The Father of Octupus Wrestling, Frankie’s new novella and her Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship (Sept, 2019)

NZ Poetry Shelf review  of The Father of Octopus Wrestling (Oct, 2019)

NZ Poetry Shelf review of My Mother and the Hungarians (Oct, 2016)

NZ Listener review of My Mother and the Hungarians (Oct, 2016)

Radio New Zealand interview  (Aug, 2014)

Radio New Zealand interview discussing flash fiction and playful poetry (Sept, 2013)