Charlotte Grimshaw

Travel from a frigid Newfoundland to the dusty streets of Iran, from a lonely Outback town to a chilly Polish winter, and back to an often sinister New Zealand. This free event brings together six of contemporary fiction's most compelling voices. Lisa Moore (Canada) is the author of the wonderfully sharp ... (more)novel Alligator and the wholly sympathetic February. Joan London (Australia) is the author of hauntingly beautiful novels Gilgamesh and The Good Parents. Fariba Hachtroudi (Iran/France) is the author of a number of novels including Iran, les rives du sang, and is the current Randell Cottage Writer-in-Residence. Anna Taylor (New Zealand) is the author of the exquisite short story collection Relief. Charlotte Grimshaw (New Zealand) is the one of our most sophisticated writers, and her most recent collections include Opportunity and Singularity. This event is hosted by Jenny Pattrick.

Sarah Dunant described Provocation, Charlotte Grimshaw's first novel, as "atmospheric, intelligent and seductively strange". Writing about the same novel, The Times remarked on "her shiny diamond-hard prose", all qualities that have come to define the style of this acclaimed novelist and short story ... (more)writer. Provocation was followed by the critically acclaimed novels Guilt and Foreign City. After writing the three novels, Grimshaw turned her considerable talents to short fiction and has produced two collections of interlinked stories. These collections have earned Grimshaw a unique place in contemporary literature as one of the few short story writers who enjoys both critical acclaim and a huge readership. Grimshaw's short story collection Opportunity won the Fiction Award in the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and was followed by Singularity, a collection lauded for a prose style The New Zealand Herald called "crisp, elegant, and richly descriptive".

Christos Tsiolkas has moved beyond being the bright young troublemaker of Australian fiction. He exploded onto the scene with Loaded, which became the marvellously nuanced film Head On. This was a book which looked at the sexual dilemmas of a young Greek Australian man who, outside the ... (more)claustrophobia of his family situation, had sex with other men. It was a brilliant introduction to Tsiolkas’ writing. Since then he has moved on to define other territories - Dead Europe was a piercing look at the worn out powers which yet hold some story-telling magnetic force. His latest novel The Slap takes a single incident, a child being smacked, and builds from it a devastating picture of contemporary Australia, the family and society. It could be set anywhere, in Putaruru or Favona. Chair: Montana New Zealand Medal winner Charlotte Grimshaw.