About me

I've been a writer in various forms for most of my adult life - as a journalist, fiction writer, and as a contract writer making websites, reports and so on (you can read my contract writer profile here).

I grew up in Levin. At Victoria University I double-majored in history and student newspapers, before going on to Canterbury for a postgraduate diploma in journalism.

At the Nelson Mail I covered employment and industrial relations during the 1990-1 recession and the advent of the Employment Contracts Act. With my partner, Rebekah Palmer, I ran away to London and there I worked for a time at book publisher Marshall Cavendish.

Back in Wellington I worked as a political reporter for many years, covering three general elections, two Apecs and countless other acronyms, taking trips to Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, the Pacific and Australia. I was acting political editor of the Evening Post when it closed shortly before the 2002 general election. I later contributed to New Zealand Geographic and edited Consumer magazine.

My first fiction publication was in 1998 when I won the Sunday Star-Times short story competition. Two years later I was shortlisted for the same prize and in 2002 Penguin Books published my first collection, Water, to positive reviews. My stories have been broadcast on National Radio and appeared in several anthologies.

I'm working on a novel, and have another novel and a short story collection also under way.

I share my life with Rebekah and our daughters Gwen (who recently learned the words 'onomatopeia' and 'halitosis') and Ursula (who tells me she will only get dressed in the morning if bribed with cheese).

• Signs: Sagittarius, and horse.
• Drug: kava, anything beginning with 'Glen'.
• Movie: Brazil.
• Band: Pink Martini. You can listen and sip at the same time.
• Book: Right now, E O Wilson's The Future of Life, and Patrick Suskind's Three Stories and a Reflection.

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