Articles & Interviews

I used to think that being a New Zealander hadn’t affected my writing much, either in flavour or setting. Moving away has changed that. It’s easy to be a Kiwi writer when you’re physically in NZ. […] I must have some particular stance in which I write from that’s peculiarly Kiwi – I’ve grown up reading the science fiction and fantasy of Margaret Mahy and Ken Catran – but I think I’ll only be able to identify it the longer I live and write away from home.

Zombies in fiction tend to populate the future, the near-future of nuclear holocausts, and suburban Americana. I wanted to write the historical zombie instead.

Before Clarion I wrote just to amuse myself. I’d thought about game writing, and I still love interactive fiction. A Clarion grad friend suggested I apply, so I did, and I had one of those Clarion experiences where I finally saw a story as its architecture and not just surface.