Top Author To Be Waikato's New Writer-In-Residence

6 December 2004

Top Author To Be Waikato's New Writer-In-Residence

Award-winning, Waikato-raised novelist Tina Shaw has been appointed Waikato University's writer-in-residence for 2005. The position is jointly funded by Creative New Zealand and the university.

Shaw's awards include the highly prestigious Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers' Residency in 2001-02 and a Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship in 1999.

She is the author of five novels: Birdie (1996), Dreams of America (1997), City of Reeds (2000), Paradise (2002) and The Black Madonna (to be published in 2005). The latter, based in 1935 and 2004, is concerned with personal reactions to the tensions of pre-war Berlin.

Shaw is currently based in Auckland where, apart from writing, she is involved in editing, manuscript assessment and teaching.

"A year of being able to concentrate entirely on my writing will be a Godsend. It gives me a tremendous opportunity to work full-time on a collection of short stories."

Tina Shaw grew up in Matangi, south of Hamilton, and went to Sacred Heart in Hamilton East, close to the university.

Besides creative writing, Shaw also ghostwrote Sheila: Winning Spirit, the 'autobiography' of New Zealand horse-trainer Sheila Laxton and edited A Passion for Travel, a collection of travel essays by New Zealand writers.

Waikato University English department senior lecturer Mark Houlahan says Shaw's appointment is very welcome. "Tina Shaw is a highly regarded New Zealand author who is planning to work on a major collection of stories during her period as our writer-in-residence. We are very pleased to be in a position to support her."

ENDS

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