Academy of New Zealand Literature

Tina Shaw has published numerous novels, non-fiction books and short stories, as well as fiction for young adults and children. Her fiction often draws on small town locations, and explores the darker side of the New Zealand landscape.

Tina’s work has been published in a multitude of magazines and anthologies. She was finalist in the LIANZA Children’s Book Awards (2010), runner-up in the Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition (2003), and received the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer’s Residency (2001). She was also the Buddle Finlay Sargeson Fellow (1999), and Writer-in-Residence at the University of Waikato (2003). Her novel, The Children’s Pond (2014), was shortlisted for the 2015 Ngaio Marsh Award for Crime Writing.

Tina has appeared as panelist, guest speaker and chair at numerous national festivals and literary events and was a judge for the 2012 National Flash Fiction Day competition. She has worked in various roles such as photographer, gardener, book reviewer, adult literacy tutoring, tutor of creative writing, and manuscript assessment.

Her latest work A House Built on Sand (Text Publishing, 2024) was the winner of the 2023 Michael Gifkins Prize. Full of suspense and heartbreak, A House Built on Sand is a haunting novel about family secrets, the hazards of memory and ghosts that linger.

.

Links

Tina Shaw’s website

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

New Zealand Society of Authors writer page

Random House Books author page

An extract from Ephemera on Newsroom (March, 2020)

Youtube: Tina Shaw reads from Ephemera (March, 2020)

Landfall review of The Children’s Pond by David Herkt (1 May 2015)

Radio New Zealand interview with Justin Gregory, Standing Room Only (20 July, 2014)

NZ Herald article, The Children’s Pond (12 July, 2014)

Wellington born Kerrin P Sharpe is a poet, writer and teacher of creative writing who now lives in Christchurch. To date she has five collections of poetry all through Te Herenga Waka (formally Victoria) University Press: Three Days in a Wishing Well (2012), There’s a Medical Name for This (2014), Rabbit Rabbit (July 2016), Louder (2018) and Hoof (2023). Reviewers  notably describe her work as, ‘poetry at its finest’ (London Grip), and a place ‘where nothing goes unnoticed’ (takahē). Bill Manhire writes that ‘Kerrin P. Sharpe’s poems make me think of migratory birds. It’s as if they have just settled very briefly on the page after long journeys from far-off places’. Lynley Edmeades (Landfall) describes Kerrin as ‘one of the most original and idiosyncratic voices currently writing in New Zealand.’

Although Kerrin completed Bill Manhire’s Victoria University Original Composition programme in 1976, family life was her focus until later in life. Since resuming writing, Kerrin has been published in many literary journals including: Best New Zealand Poems, The Best of Best New Zealand Poems (2011), Sport, NZ Listener, Trout and Turbine. In Australia, Cordite, Snorkel and Contrappasso; in Britain, London Grip and Blackbox Manifold and in the US, Penduline.

In 2008, Kerrin was awarded the NZ Post Creative Writing Teacher’s Award from the International Institute of Modern Letters, and in 2013 received a Creative NZ grant to write her third collection of poetry, Rabbit Rabbit. Also in 2013, she had twelve of her poems included in Oxford Poets 2013, published by Carcanet Press UK. In 2021 Kerrin was awarded a Micheal King Writers Centre residency.

Kerrin’s latest work Hoof arrives with new urgency and longing. These are poems about a father who can only remember one word, ponies that grow hooves of basalt as they pull Scott and Shackleton around Ōtamahua in sledges, and a woman named Johanna living in a small village in Greenland. She writes about the strange places that watch over our parents, and the delicate but brutal mechanics of surgery. Famous people appear here too: Leonard Cohen, Ted Hughes, William Blake, and Benedict Cumberbatch at a bus stop.

Links

Victoria University Press author page

 NZ Electronic Poetry Centre poems in SPORT

Interview with Victoria UP disussing Louder (Aug, 2018)

NZ Poetry Shelf review of Rabbit Rabbit (June, 2016)

NZ Poetry Shelf interview (Sept, 2015)

Elspeth Sandys has been a full time writer for the last 35 years. In that time, she has published nine novels, two collections of short stories and two memoirs. Her fiction focuses on relationships: personal, social and political. Some of her novels have historical settings, but the themes motivating the books are contemporary.

Amongst numerous accolades, Elspeth’s novel River Lines (Hodder & Stoughton; Hodder Moa-Beckett, 1995) was a finalist in the 1996 Orange Prize. Her short story collection, Standing in Line (Secretariat of Culture of Jalisco, 2003) won the Elena Garro Pen International Prize. In 2006, Elspeth was awarded the Officer of the Order of New Zealand for Services to Literature in the Queen’s New Year Honours.

Elspeth has written extensively for the BBC and RNZ, both original plays and adaptations, as well as a number of film and television scripts. Her stage plays have been performed in England and New Zealand. She has worked as a creative writing teacher, editor for Oxford University Press, and ghost written (with John Man) several non fiction works including, A State of Blood and The Survival of Jan Little.

Currently domiciled in New Zealand, Elspeth returns regularly to the UK, where she raised a family for over 20 years. She has an MA (First Class Hons) in English from Auckland University, an FTCL in Speech and Drama from Trinity College, London, and an LTCL in Music, also from Trinity College, London.

Elspeth’s latest nonfiction work celebrates the life of her cousin Rewi Alley of China.  A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley (Otago University Press, 2019) is a multi-layered narrative centred around Alley and his part in the momentous political events of mid-twentieth-century China.

In her most recent work, A Gap in Nature (Quentin Wilson Publishing, 2025), a daughter must come to grips with the tenacity of inter-generational trauma and the unforeseen consequences of trying to forget.

Links

View Elspeth’s website

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Otago University Press author page

MBA Literary and Script Agents author page

Micheal King Writers’ Centre residency news

NZ Booklovers interview discussing A Gap in Nature (Nov, 2025)

Going West Festival podcast: Elspeth discusses her memoir What Lies Beneath (July, 2020)

Otago Daily Times extract from A Communist in the Family (Aug, 2019)

Landfall review of Casting Off (March, 2018)

Radio NZ interview discussing Casting Off, autobiography vs memoir and Elspeth’s loves and life (Sept, 2017)

Radio NZ review of Obsession on ‘Nine to Noon’ (April, 2017)

Radio NZ interview in which Elspeth discusses writing, life and Obsession in ‘Standing Room Only‘ (March, 2017)

Spinoff article inwhich Elspeth discusses Obsession, Maurice Shadbolt and obsessive love (March, 2017)

NZ Herald review of What Lies Beneath (Nov, 2014)

Beatties Books review of What Lies Beneath (Nov, 2014)

Radio NZ interview with Kathyrn Ryan on What Lies Beneath (Sept, 2014)

Elspeth and What Lies Beneath at the Nelson Arts Festival media release (Sept, 2013)

Radio NZ audio production of ‘The Caves of Winds’ by Elspeth Sandys (Jul, 2011)

Charlotte Randall is a fiction writer and author of seven critically acclaimed novels. Reviewer Paula Green describes her as a writer ‘whose novels reflect someone utterly in love with the potential of language. She is a novelist who takes risks, who lets her imagination audaciously soar and, like Lloyd Jones and Elizabeth Knox, surprises you with each new book’. Amongst her accolades, Charlotte has been the recipient of the Ursula Bethel Creative New Zealand Residency at Canterbury University (2005), and Creative Writing Residency at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University (2001).

Charlotte’s first novel Dead Sea Fruit (Secker & Warburg, 1995) was winner of both the Reed Fiction Award and Best First Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, South-East Asia/South Pacific Region (1996). The Curative (Penguin, 2000) was Runner-up for the Deutz Medal for Fiction and Montana New Zealand Book Awards (2001). Charlotte has twice been Finalist in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, in 2009 for The Crocus Hour (Penguin, 2008), and in 2005 for What Happen Then, Mr Bones? (Penguin, 2004). In addition, The Bright Side of My Condition (Penguin, 2014) was a Finalist for the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards. Charlotte was one of only four authors shortlisted for the 2002 Glenn Schaeffer Award. The Curative has been presented several times on NZ radio, and had a successful season as a play at Christchurch’s Court Theatre 2 in 2003.  The Bright Side of My Condition was serialised on National Radio in 2014 and is now in development as a script in Auckland.

Charlotte grew up in Dunedin before studying psychology at the University of Canterbury. She has participated on numerous occasions in national festivals including Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson, and internationally in Brisbane.

Links

Charlotte on Facebook

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Penguin House author page

Wikipedia

Booksellers NZ review of The Bright Side of My Condition (Aug, 2014)

Radio New Zealand review of The Bright Side of My Condition (Feb, 2014)

NZ Listener review of The Bright Side of My Condition (Jan, 2014)

Michael Morrissey is a postmodern author of twelve books of poetry, two short story collections, three novellas, one full length novel and a memoir.  He has edited five other books, mainly comprising short stories and poetry, written for stage, film and radio and is a regular columnist, reviewer and feature writer. His anthology The New Fiction was the first anthology of New Zealand postmodern fiction, and his more than 80 published short stories, ranging from social neo-realism to the surreal and postmodern, have been widely anthologised. A film entitled Daytime Tiger made by Costa Botes  – like his memoir Taming the Tiger – focused on manic-depression which Michael describes as a ‘joyous affliction’. In Taming the Tiger (2011) Michael describes  his experiences with bipolar disorder, including two serious bipolar episodes and his forced hospitalisation. . An abridgement of Taming the Tiger in five episodes was read on National Radio on 23–27 July 2012.

Michael’s accolades are numerous and include the PEN Best First Book of Prose Award (1982), Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition (1984) and Lilian Ida Smith Poetry Award (1986). In 1979, he was the first Writer-in-Residence at the University of Canterbury. In 1985 he was the first New Zealander to participate in the International Writing Programme at the University of Iowa. He was also Writer-in-Residence at the University of Waikato (2012).

Michael has been guest or chair at Victoria University (1980), University of Iowa (1985), University in Hamilton Ontario (1985) and Going West Literary Festival (1990). He studied the teaching of creative writing in America, then taught creative writing at, among others, Auckland University and the NZ Institute of Business Studies.

Morrissey’s novel, Tropic of Skorpeo, published in 2012, is a satiric sci-fi fantasy in thriller mode.

Links

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Wikipedia

New Zealand Literature File full bibliography

Poetry New Zealand site poet page

Big Idea interview discussing contemporary writing and reviewing (Feb, 2014)

Fiction writer Linda Olsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948 and has lived in Kenya, Singapore, Britain, and Japan before settling in New Zealand. Her five novels have brought her international acclaim.

Initially, Linda graduated from the University of Stockholm with a degree in Law and worked in law and finance until she left Sweden in 1986. What was intended as a three years posting to Nairobi, Kenya, then became a meandering tour of the world until she remained in New Zealand with her family, completing a BA at Victoria University, and then a BAHon at the University of Auckland. She now divides her time between Auckland and Sweden.

In 2003, Linda won the prestigious Sunday Star Times Short Story competition. This was followed by her first novel Let me sing you gentle songs (2005). It subsequently became an international success, published in 25 countries, and winning bestselling paper book novel in Sweden in all categories. Her next three novels Sonata for Miriam (2009), The Kindness of Your Nature (2011), and The Blackbird Sings at Dusk (2016) have also been published internationally.

In collaboration with Thomas Sainsbury, and under the pseudonym Adam Sarafis, Linda has also published the first thriller in The Matakana Trilogy, Something is Rotten (2015). The Otago Daily Times has described it as ‘an engrossing read’ with ‘a darkest-hour-is-just-before-dawn twist at the end’.

Linda has attended festivals in Wellington, New Zealand and extensively in Europe, including Gothenburg, Sweden, (four times), Madrid, Spain, Prague, Czech Republic, Lillehammer, Norway and Frankfurt.

Her fifth novel, A Sister in My House, was released in April 2016.

Links

Linda Olsson’s website

Twitter:@lindaolssonwrit

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Penguin Books author page

Stuff review by Paula Green of The Blackbird Sings at Dusk (2016)

Award winning poet, fiction and creative non-fiction writer Bill Manhire has been a significant figure in the promotion of New Zealand poetry and literature. He is particularly known for founding New Zealand’s first creative writing program through Victoria University. Graduates of this include many leading poets, fiction writers and script writers. Regarded as one of the greatest New Zealand poets of his era, Bill was New Zealand’s inaugural Poet Laureate (1997-1998), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. His awards include the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry, an Arts Foundation laureateship, and New Zealand Book Award for Poetry (four times) and the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Award (2018). He is a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of Otago. He has participated in numerous festivals nationally and internationally.

Born in Invercargill in 1946, Bill grew up in small hotels in Otago and Southland, a world he evokes in his short memoir, Under the Influence (Four Winds Press, 2003). Since his first book of poems, The Elaboration (Square & Circle, 1972), he has published multiple award-winning collections of poetry, most recently Selected Poems (Victoria UP, NZ; Carcanet, UK, 2014). A celebration of his short fiction is collected in The Stories of Bill Manhire (Victoria UP, 2015). For poetry and prose, Bill has been awarded a number of significant fellowships, including the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, France (2004). Through the Antarctica New Zealand Arts Fellowship (1997) he was one of only a few poets to have ever reached the South Pole. Bill’s work is also widely anthologised in New Zealand, the UK and the US.

Anthologies he has edited include The Wide White Page: Writers Imagine Antarctica (Victoria UP, 2004), The Best of Best New Zealand Poems (Victoria UP, 2011) and Are Angels OK? (Victoria UP, 2006) a sci-art collaboration between New Zealand writers and physicists.

Bill has worked with Norman Meehan and Hannah Griffin on a range of music projects, from which a number of CDs have resulted including Making Baby Float, Buddhist Rain and Tell Me My Name, a song cycle of riddles and charms.

His collection Wow (Victoria UP, 2020) was longlisted for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Wow begins with the song of an extinct bird and journeys on into troubling futures. These poems reach for the possibilities of lyric, even as their worlds are being threatened in a range of agitating ways. In the title poem we hear a baby say Wow to life and to the astonishing prospect of language; but almost immediately we hear the world reply: Also. ‘Being the leading poet in New Zealand is like being the best DJ in Estonia, impressive enough on its own terms. But Bill Manhire is more than that: he’s unquestionably world-class. As with Seamus Heaney, you get a sense of someone with a steady hand on the tiller, and both the will and the craft to take your breath away.’ —Teju Cole.

His new, dazzling Lyrical Ballads (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2026), is a many-peopled collection anchored by two long sequences that embrace awkwardness, mystery and absurdity: ‘The Tobacco Tin’, a kind of folk story riding along on its own lacunae, and ‘Tell You What’, a set of curmudgeonly opinions that evoke the prejudices of a fast-vanishing world. As they notice the small collisions between wonder and everyday reality, and the trajectories of those who don’t fit easily in this world, these poems close in on the darker certainties of our lives.

Links

Bill Manhire on Twitter

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

NZ Electronic Poetry Centre bibliography

Victoria University Press author page

ANZRB review of Lyrical Ballads (Feb, 2026)

NZ Poetry Shelf review and interview regarding The Stories of Bill Manhire (May, 2016)

Radio New Zealand interview (Nov, 2015)

NZ Listener interview (Feb, 2013)

Links

Tina Makereti’s website

Twitter:@tinamakereti

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Random House Books NZ author page

ANZRB review of This Compulsion in Us (May, 2025)

Radio NZ interview discussing The Mires (July, 2024)

Spinoff review of The Mires (July, 2024)

Radio NZ interview with Tina on The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke (2018)

Auckland Writers Festival University of Auckland public lecture ‘Poutokomanawa – The Heartpost’ (2017)

Short story ‘Black Milk’ in Granta magazine (Winner: Pacific Regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize, 2016)

NZ Listener review of Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings (2014)

Rosetta Allan on Stephanie Johnson:

Stephanie Johnson, MNZM, is a literary rock star. Her work spans decades and numerous genres, including stage, television and radio, poetry, and fiction. Her diverse, complex body of work is notable for its empathy, intelligence and wit, exhibiting her mastery of story and style, and an abiding interest in the complexities of relationships and societies. It’s unsurprising that she’s won many awards – including the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction – or that she was appointed, in 2019, appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.

From the outset, her work has displayed a unique ability to explore complex characters and deeply rooted social issues. Her debut novel, Crimes of Neglect (1992), introduced readers to her trademark irony and unflinching focus on human frailties – still on display in her most recent novel, Kind (2023). Novels like The Heart’s Wild Surf (1996), The Shag Incident (2002), The Open World (2012), and Belief (2000) showcase her talent for creating multi-dimensional characters who navigate the complexities of their own lives, exploring themes of cultural identity, displacement, and personal transformation, set against a backdrop of significant historical and social changes. In her fiction she has explored alternative histories, satire, metafiction, the grotesque. She has written under a pseudonym; her work traverses countries, empires and eras. ‘The beauty of the novel in full sail will never be lost,’ she wrote in the satire The Writing Class, ‘even as we choke in a plume of electronic soot.’

Beyond her publications, Stephanie’s contributions to Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary scene have been immense. She has taught and mentored countless emerging writers, demonstrating her generosity and commitment to fostering Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary talent In 1998, with the late Peter Wells, she founded the Auckland Writers Festival. ‘In a sense,’ she wrote in 2021, ‘we had to educate Aucklanders as to what a writers festival was … [We wanted] to provide a venue outside the universities where people could come together to be inspired by ideas. And these ideas, just as in recent festivals, were to spring from every field of human endeavour – scientific, culinary, horticultural, poetical, political, literary, from the visual and dramatic arts.’ At first the festival ran every two years ‘because we were not sure that Aucklanders would come if we ran the festival annually. It might be too much, too soon.’ It is now one of the largest and most prestigious literary festivals in the Southern Hemisphere.

After the launch of Kind, a number of us walked from The Women’s Bookshop on Ponsonby Road to Stephanie’s home. The old villa was warm, inviting, and full of life. Her daughter’s family had recently moved in, and I couldn’t help wondering how three generations managed to fit in the Victorian idea of a home with a typically long hallway that took up a disproportionate amount of space and a small kitchen out the back. A well-loved kauri table took up most of the kitchen space, and we made a happy cluster around it, with any overflow making their way out onto the back porch overlooking the vegetable garden. The house brimmed with laughter, and I could feel the love from Stephanie for her friends and family. When asked about her favourite smell is, she said it was her granddaughters, Una and Rho: ‘they smell like sunshine and hope.’

Stephanie’s strength lies not only in her extensive literary achievements but also in her role as a mentor, ambassador, friend, and matriarch. She embodies the kind of generosity, honesty and courage that makes her a beacon for those around her. For other writers, her no-nonsense approach is a guiding light and a reminder to stay true to the work and never shy away from the truth. There’s no room for anything less than that in Stephanie Johnson’s world.

Bio:

Novelist, short story writer and poet Stephanie Johnson has also successfully written for stage, television and radio over a career that spans three decades. Her diverse work is marked by its mixture of irony, intelligence and compassion. In the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours Stephanie was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature. She was recently announced as the 2022 recipient of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction.

Since the much loved The Heart’s Wild Surf (1996), Stephanie has published eleven more novels. She is a past winner of the Montana Book Award (The Shag Incident), while her novel The Whistler won third prize in the Montana Book Awards (1999), and her novel Belief was shortlisted for the Montana Book Awards (2001). She has been awarded the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship in Menton, France (2000), made a Literary Fellow at Auckland University (2001), and was a recipient of the Bruce Mason Memorial Playwright’s Award (1985). Several of her novels have been longlisted for the Impac Awards in Dublin. She was also winner of the Dymocks/Quote Unquote Reader’s Poll, Best New Zealand Book for The Heart’s Wild Surf (1996). Her novel, Crimes of Neglect, was shortlisted for the Wattie Book Awards (1993).

With Peter Wells, Stephanie founded the highly successful Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in 1998. In addition, she has been guest speaker at various festivals, both in New Zealand and internationally, taught a broad range of writing classes and is involved in ongoing mentorship and manuscript assessments. Stephanie was the 2016 recipient of both the Randell Cottage Residency, Wellington, and Alumna Merita Award, Diocesan School for Girls, Auckland.

Playing for Both Sides (BWB, 2016) is a personal exploration of the Australia-New Zealand relationship. In 2016 Stephanie also edited Good Dog! New Zealand Writers on Dogs (Penguin Random House) an anthology of dog-related poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction. Other recent works are a biographical investigation entitled West Island: Five Twentieth-century New Zealanders in Australia (Otago UP, 2019) and Everything Changes (RHNZ Vintage, 2021) a novel about a dysfunctional family who buy a rundown motel to start a new life. Everything Changes was the winner of the 2021 NZ Society of Authors Heritage Prize for Fiction.

Stephanie’s novel Kind (RHNZ, 2023) is a funny, fearless, thought-provoking novel that rains its sights on us with super yachts and stereotypes, #MeToo blunders and post-apocalyptic bolt holes, locking down and locking up.

Her most recent work Obligate Carnivore (Quentin Wilson Publishing, 2025), cements her reputation as a writer with a unique ability to blend humour and high seriousness, horror and hilarity, irony and compassion. These twenty-seven stories all display her unerring talent for bravura storytelling.

Links

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Random House Books author page

ANZRB review of Obligate Carnivore (Dec, 2025)

NZ Prime Minster’s Award for Literary Acheivement 2022 – Recipients announced (Dec, 2022)

The Shape We’re In: Stephanie Johnson’s University of Auckland Free Public Lecture, Auckland Writers Festival (May, 2021)

ANZL review of Everything Changes (March, 2021)

Radio New Zealand interview (2015)

NZ Listener review of The Writers’ Festival (2015)

NZ Listener review of The Writing Class (2013)

Chris Else has been described as one of our most versatile writers. Marked by his dry humour, his nine novels and two short story collections range from satire, tragedy, murder mystery, love story and fairy tale through to philosophical explorations of place and existence. The NZ Listener described Chris as ‘a meticulous observer of people and places’. His work appears in multiple anthologies and journals. He has also written plays for stage and radio, and scripts for television.

Chris was the King’s College Writer-in-Residence (2007), and recipient of the Foxton Fellowship (2003), and Autumn residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre (2012). He has worked as a primary school teacher, publisher’s rep, university lecturer, English language teacher, bookseller, computer programmer, publishing consultant, creative writing and technical writing teacher and information management consultant, and was associated with the avant-garde poetry magazine Freed.

Since 1988 he has run the TFS Literary Agency and Manuscript Assessment service with wife and author Barbara Else. Successful clients include Alan Duff, Emma Neale and Nigel Cox. With Barbara, Chris was instrumental in setting up both the New Zealand Association of Literary Agents and the New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors. He is a long time, active member of New Zealand Society of Authors/PEN, serving on the National Council, on and off, for twenty years including two terms as President, and has been a board member and chairman of Copyright Licensing New Zealand.

His latest novel Waterline, published in 2019 by Quentin Wilson Publishing, is a mix of sci-fi, black comedy and domestic drama.

Links

Chris Else’s website

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura writer page

Wikipedia

Random House Books author page

Radio NZ review of Waterline (Dec, 2019)

Stuff review of Waterline (Oct, 2019)