Fiona Farrell

Fiona Farrell studied at University of Otago. The recorded working language is English. Distinctions recorded are Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, Fellow of the Academy of New Zealand Literature, Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit and Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (Fiction).

• Name — Fiona Farrell • Honorific Suffix — ONZM • Born — 1947 • Birthplace — Oamaru, New Zealand • Education — * University of Otago • University of Toronto • Genre — * Fiction • non-fiction • plays • poetry

Farrell was born and raised in Oamaru, in the South Island of New Zealand. She attended Waitaki Girls' High School, then graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Otago in 1968. Farrell moved to Oxford in the United Kingdom with her husband after graduating and was enrolled at the University of London in art history. She and her husband then moved to Canada where Farrell graduated Master of Arts (1973) and MPhil in drama (1976) at the University of Toronto. She worked as a drama lecturer at the Palmerston North Teachers' College and lived in Palmerston North from 1976 to 1991 where she began her writing career creating plays with New Zealand content for her students.

Farrell has held numerous residencies and been recognised for her writing in many ways, including at the New Zealand Book Awards where she has been a finalist in all three categories, for fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her first novel, The Skinny Louie Book, won the fiction award in 1993, and three subsequent novels have been shortlisted for the award. Four have been nominated for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. Two works of non-fiction, The Broken Book (2011) and The Villa at the Edge of the Empire (2015), a study of the impact of the earthquakes of 2010-2011 on her then home town, Christchurch, were shortlisted for the non-fiction award. Her poetry collection, The Pop-Up Book of Invasions, written while she held a writing residency in Donoughmore, Ireland, was a finalist in the poetry section at the 2008 NZ Book Awards. She has been a frequent guest at festivals throughout New Zealand and abroad, including Adelaide, Vancouver, Salisbury UK and Edinburgh. Between 1992 and 2017, she lived with her husband, Doug Hood, at Otanerito, a remote bay on Banks Peninsula, where their home was one of the accommodation points on the Banks Peninsula Track. Farrell has two daughters. She is now based in Dunedin.