Biography

   I grew up in Rongotai, Wellington. My parents were well known Communists. When my friends and I went to town on Friday nights in the fifties I walked past my mother on her soap box as if she wasn’t there – and my friends never said anything. Then a little further on I’d try to avoid my father selling the Communist paper, The People’s Voice.
    The trouble with him was that he was so friendly and would yell out. I longed to be like everyone else, have a mother like other mothers. Mum was different in just about every way – she even had a vegetable garden at the front of our house when everyone else had neat lawns! I was always a little on the outside and I think that alienation helps in becoming a writer.
     I didn’t do well at school. I left with no qualifications. I wanted to be good and work but I couldn’t make myself do it, though I was full of promises. I just seemed to live in a dream world. I loved acting, art and writing and was good at them all. I joined Unity Theatre and for the first time realized I could concentrate on something (when it came to learning lines).
     My first job was making envelopes and cardboard boxes at John Dickinson’s in Frederick Street in Wellington, then making refrigerators at the Electrolux factory in Rongotai. After that I got a job doing the layout on a knitting magazine (Stitch) in Cable Car Lane.
    At some point I worked in the Penguin Bookshop in Willis Street (loved that job) and just before I got married I worked in Wardell’s Coffee Lounge.
    I ended up having five children – Brent, Craig, Jane, Robert and Caitlin. They all have their own children now. I will never regret having children. We lived in Paekakariki for many years. I divorced in 1978 and became my own woman and so the story goes on with a lot more action and drama, some of which I have written about in a fictional way (you can be so much freer with the truth in fiction) and with more to come……...
   I have run creative writing workshops for adults for many years at various institutions, including prisons, polytechs and my own correspondence courses.   I am a member of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors and a member of the NZ Book Council.

Grants and Awards

2001 - $9000 Creative New Zealand grant to write a novel for young adults.
1993 - $5000 Arts Council grant
1990 - $15,000 Writer’s Bursary to write The Widowhood of Jacki Bates. Had residency at Janet Frame’s house in Shannon for seven months. Most productive time of my life.
1989 - Small travel grant from QE11 Arts Council to take part in the Feminist Book Fortnight in Australia (September). Read alongside Helen Garner, Kate Grenville, Bernice Ruebens and others at Harold Park Hotel in Sydney. Also readings in Melbourne.
1984 - Received $2,500 Arts Council writing grant.

Short Story Competitions

1997 Third place Rawene Short Story Competition (children 10-13)
1997 Final short list Commonwealth Broadcasting Short Story Competition
1990 Short listed Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award

Other Relevant Information

2008 Repeat serialization of In The Dark – Story Time National Radio
2002 Repeat serialization of The Widowhood of Jacki Bates
1997 Judged Katherine Mansfield Short Story Awards (novice section)
1994 The Widowhood of Jacki Bates serialized on National Radio, Nine to Noon, June, repeated a few months later
1991 Waiting for Jim made into a short film by Chrissie Parker of Auckland and retitled, One Man’s Meat. Shown at film festival and later sold to France, England and Germany.