New Zealand Writers

LIVESEY, Anna

A writer with a keen interest in the historical

LIVESEY, Anna (1979-) is a poet and short story writer.

Livesey was born and raised in Wellington. She studied at Victoria University of Wellington, where in 2002 she completed an MA in Creative Writing.

Livesey’s first collection of poems, Napier (Pemmican Press), was published in 2002, and was followed in 2003 by Good Luck (VUP). In the New Zealand Listener, Peter Bland wrote, in reference to the Napier poem; ‘Livesey's most original talent – and it's a considerable one – is in organising the fabric of the longer documentary-type poem.’ He went on to say, ‘She has a real talent for the imaginative treatment of found material’.

Livesey’s work has been published in Sport, Landfall, Takahe, Turbine, Poetry New Zealand and Australian Journal of Canadian Studies. In 2003 she had a poem selected for Best New Zealand Poems.

Livesey’s awards include the MacMillan Brown Prize, which she won in both 2000 and 2002. She won the novice category of the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Awards in 2003. She was, in the same year, the recipient of the Schaeffer Fellowship, which enabled her to spend a year studying at the Iowa Writers Workshop.

Anna Livesey currently lives in Wellington.

(L.K)