Once Upon a Deadline

Sarah Laing

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:48:52 +0000

Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and graphic designer. Her first collection of short stories, Coming up Roses, was published in 2007, and followed her win of the 2006 Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition. She illustrated the book Macaroni Moon (2009) and in the same year published the novel, Dead People’s Music, which is set in Wellington and New York. Laing was a Michael King Writers Centre Writer in Residence in 2008.

*Information from New Zealand Book Council.

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Jo Randerson

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:47:56 +0000

Jo is a Wellington-based writer, performer and theatre-maker. She has published 4 books: The Spit Children, The Knot, The Keys to Hell and Through the Door. For more information please see www.joranderson.com and www.barbarian.co.nz.

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Eleanor Catton (Audience’s Choice Award winner)

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Eleanor won the Adam Prize for her first novel The Rehearsal in 2007. Published by VUP in New Zealand, it has been since sold to publishers in the UK, the USA, and Europe. In 2007 Catton also won the Sunday Star- Times Short Story Competition, and was awarded the 2008 Schaeffer Fellowship to the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Eleanor was born in Canada while her father, a New Zealand graduate,

was completing a doctorate at the University of Ontario. She lived in Yorkshire until the age of 13, before her family settled in Canterbury, New Zealand. She attended Burnside High

School, studied English at Canterbury University, and completed a Masters in Creative Writing at The Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington. She wrote the novel as her Master’s Thesis.

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David Geary (Judges’ Prize winner)

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:45:55 +0000

David Geary is a dual citizen of New Zealand and Canada, and of English, Scottish, Irish, and Maori (Ng! M!hanga – Taranaki) blood. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, with a B.A. in English Literature, including Bill Manhire’s Creative Writing course. He then went on to receive an Acting Diploma in Drama from Toi Whakaari The New Zealand Drama School.

David has been a professional writer and actor since 1988. He is an award-winning playwright (see www.playmarket.org.nz) having written, co-written or helped devise over twenty

theatrical productions. He has also worked on some of New Zealand’s most popular television series; including Shortland St, Jacksons Wharf and Mercy Peak. He has written, co-produced and co-directed a one-hour television documentary, The Smell of Money, done development work for feature film producers in New Zealand, Australia and England; and had short films he’s written produced in NZ and Canada. He’s currently a story consultant on a Canadian First Nations TV series in development, The Odyssey.

David has taught story telling and scriptwriting at all levels – from primary/elementary and high schools, through to universities and professional writers. In Canada, he lead the Indigena Storytelling Lab for First Nation writers. In 2008, he ran writing workshops for emerging playwrights through Playmarket and emerging Maori fiction writers for Huia Publishing.

In 2009, he toured with WOW – Writers on Wheels, taught The Studio for Playmarket and high school students at the NZ Post School Festival. He worked with over five hundred Intermediate students in the Aotea Centre at Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, is the Writer in Residence at St Cuthberts School, Auckland, did a Toi Maori M!ori writers tour of the Taranaki, Judged the Pikihuia short story in English comp and taught the First Year Scriptwriting at Whitireia, Porirua.

David is also a published poet and fiction writer, with VUP publishing his book of inter-linked short stories A MAN OF THE PEOPLE (2003). His short story GARY MANAWATU (1964-2008): DEATH OF A FENCE-POST- MODERNIST was selected for Six Pack Three, and was anthologised in The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories, edited by Paula Morris.

In 2008, he was the Writer in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington, where he wrote a full-length play on Mark Twain’s 1895 tour of New Zealand, MARK TWAIN & ME IN M!ORILAND. This will be produced by Taki Rua Theatre at the Wellington International Festival of the Arts in 2010. He’s currently working on his debut novel HENARE VIII – a gory story for boys for Huia, and has received a Creative New Zealand grant to write a new collection of short stories, entitled Rangiw!hia.

In 2010, he will be Senior Lecturer in Scriptwriting at the IIML at Victoria University of Wellington.

David lives in Paekakariki, New Zealand, with his fellow-writer wife, Deborah Wilton, and young sons, Tahi and Sampson.

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Carl Nixon

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:44:57 +0000

Carl lives in Christchurch, New Zealand where he was born in 1967. He lives with his wife and two young children. He has a Masters in Religious Studies from the University of Canterbury. He is a professional full-time writer of plays, short stories and novels.

Carl has twice won the Sunday Star Times Short Story Contest (1997, 1999) and won the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Contest in 2007. His collection of short stories, Fish “n’ Chip Shop Song was published by

Random House, and immediately went to number one on the NZ best selling fiction list. His stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, and over a dozen have been broadcast by Radio New Zealand.

Carl was the 2007 Ursula Bethell / Creative New Zealand Writer-in-Residence at Canterbury University, where he completed a novel, Rocking Horse Road.

His recent theatrical scripts include: an adaptation of Booker shortlisted novelist Lloyd Jones’ novel The Book of Fame, and an adaptation of Nobel Prize winner J M Coetzee’s novel Disgrace for Auckland Theatre Company. His plays The Raft and The Birthday Boy premiered at the Court Theatre in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Carl is currently is working on his second novel, Settlers’ Creek.

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Briar Grace Smith

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:42:44 +0000

Briar Grace Smith is descended from the Ngapuhi tribe in the north of New Zealand. She writes for theatre, television and film and her short fiction has been included in various anthologies. Her plays have toured both New Zealand and internationally and include Purapurawhetu, Haruru Mai, When Sun and Moon Collide and Potiki’s Memory of Stone. She was an inaugural recipient of the NZ Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2000 and the writer in residence at Victoria University in 2003. She was selected to attend the Sundance screenwriters Laboratory in Utah in 2006 and her first screenplay The Strength of Water premiered at Rotterdam and Berlin film festivals in 2009.

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Tara June Winch

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:39:07 +0000

Tara was born in 1983. She is a Wiradjuri woman. In 2004 she won the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writers, for her novel Swallow the Air (UQP). In 2006 she was awarded the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Indigenous Writing, and also nominated for The Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction, The Queensland Premiers Literary Award for Short Story Collection and a Deadly Award. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Stories 2005. She has written and is currently writing for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin and Good Reading Magazine. She lives outside of Sydney with her darling daughter Lila and their garden.

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Ruth Hessey

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:38:06 +0000

Ruth is currently working on two screen projects set in different periods of Australian history. Over the last fifteen years Ruth has juggled commitments as a performer, fiction writer, and journalist working in film, television, radio and print journalism.

Most recently the editor of Australia’s leading arts journal, Australian Art Review (2003-2005), Ruth was film editor/feature writer for the Sydney Morning Herald from 1995 – 2000, and a regular film reviewer for Richard

Glover on ABC radio 702, and James Valentine on 702 Afternoons. Ruth’s byline has appeared everywhere – from The Age, to Vogue, Marie Claire , the Sydney Morning Herald and IF magazine.

In 1998 Ruth co-edited the short fiction collection Screwed: Stories of Love and Sex (Allen & Unwin) with contributors such as Bob Ellis, Luke Davies, Jill Dupleix, Terry Durack and William Yang. Ruth has also held the positions of Contributing Editor (New Woman), Senior Editor (Juice), and Arts Editor (The Eastern Herald).

From 2000 – 2002, Ruth appeared as the channel host/presenter of the World Movies pay TV channel. Previous television credits include film reviewer for ABC TV Arts Review. She also created a film course and directed a short documentary film made with indigenous students at Rooty Hill High School in 2004 and 2005 (DVD copies available). The project was so successful, Ruth was commissioned to create another film course at Rooty Hill High School in 2006.

In 2002, Ruth produced, directed and conducted a series of television interviews with guest filmmakers for the Adelaide International Film Festival Archives Project (Rolf de Heer, David Gulpilil, etc). The previous year she created a similar series of interviews at the Sydney International Film Festival. Copies available.

Over the years Ruth has written about food (a column in the Sun-Herald, feature writer Vogue Entertaining); design and architecture (Object, Interior Architecture, Marie Claire Lifestyle, Inside Out); and pop culture (Juice, Rolling Stone, Elle, New Woman, SMH). Ruth has also worked extensively as a travel writer covering stories in New York, LA, London, Dublin, South of France, Nepal, Vietnam, Kakadu, The Kimberlies, Tasmania, Zanzibar, and Thailand for Elle, Rolling Stone, Australian Style, Marie-Claire Lifestyle, and The Age.

As a film critic she has interviewed everyone from Ang Lee to Gerard Depardieu, Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Cate Blanchett, Peter Weir, Ridley Scott, Toni Collette, Jack Nicholson, Geoffrey Rush, Phil Noyce, Spike Lee etc. Flickers is a collection of her film interviews and essays.

Ruth is also a seasoned public speaker, and has presided as a jury member on many film festivals throughout Australia, including the FIPRESCI International Jury at the Brisbane International Film festival.

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Lewie JPD (Bryce Courtenay Award winner)

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:37:16 +0000

Lewie JPD was born in Kings Cross on Elvis’s birthday, grew up in the Aussie bush until ten, then spent the next eight years in Tokyo, Japan.

He started writing comedy skits for television (NHK Tokyo) at the age of fifteen. Since then he hasn’t stopped writing – for film, TV, radio and magazines; living and working in the US, Japan and Australia.

Lewie JPD has contributed to mainstream periodicals such as Black &

White, Good Weekend, Independent Film and Arena as well as editing and publishing 50+ issues of three underground zines since 1991 – Free Spirit, Scripthead and Idle.

He has written six feature film scripts – one of which, Tokyo Rush, has been optioned in Japan.

His first book, All I’ve Ever Wanted Was What I Know I Can Never Have, a collection of his humourous writings, was published in 2001 and his latest work, Eat A Rainbow and Shit Gold Nuggets, now complete, is due for publication in early 2007.

He currently resides in Byron Bay, where he writes and performs a weekly comedy radio show, The Wonderful Thing, on Bay FM and is directing a feature-length documentary about Byron’s creative utopians called Bliss Jockeys.

Generally speaking, he likes being a human.

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Joy Aimee

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:36:16 +0000

Joy Aimee

Question: Joy, what’s with this constant reinvention? Answer: Why should Madonna have all the fun?

Joy Aimee is the latest incarnation of Sydney-based writer and creativity coach, Joy Atkin.

The author of So, What’s Today’s Brilliant Excuse? and the soon-to-be

released So Where’s My Happy Ever After? Joy is a storyteller who found her voice once she stopped writing advertising copy (despite its laryngitis-inducing effect, Joy is grateful that

advertising taught her to be succinct and understand the value of a good headline) and ghost writing books for clients (she’s written six books for others, including Open for Inspection and Black Belt of the Mind.)

Now that she’s no longer a ghost, Joy writes on contemporary themes including love, sexuality, creativity and the power of beliefs in limiting or expanding our lives.

Also a gifted teacher, Joy taught writing classes for many years through Manly-Warringah Community College, Mosman Community College, the Australian Catholic University and privately. She prefers working one-on-one with clients these days and has been privileged to coach many gifted writers, some of whom have gone on to be published internationally. Gulp!Fiction, Joy’s popular online fiction writing course, is available through the NSW Writers Centre and www.writewellwritenow.com. Joy has a Bachelor of Arts degree, Diploma of Teaching, is a Level One Accredited Coach and has qualifications in public speaking.

For further information about Joy’s books, visit www.happyeverafterclub.com or www.brilliantexcuse.com.

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