Stu Duval

Stu Duval was born in the South Island of New Zealand in the shadow of Christchurch’s great Cathedral.

He won his first art contest at the age of five – the prize was a tawdry gold pen with his name engraved on it. The pen is long gone but the urge to paint is engraved still. 

His career path, (he would call it his ‘careening path!’) has provided him with ample material for his current profession as storyteller. He has been a factory worker, minister, ranger, broadcaster, children’s worker, graphic artist, director, motivational speaker.

Yet the art was always the thread. The lifeline.

His choice of subject is eclectic, often composed with the eye of a graphic designer, a link back to his years spent in advertising. (He agreed to take up a position in a small Hawke’s Bay advertising agency as Creative Director if he could work just three days a week – the rest of the time he gave over to painting and writing!) From this grew his first major exhibition and first published novel. The latter pointing him in a breathtaking new direction.
 
In 2000 he embarked on a journey as a full-time storyteller, combining his art with his own words.

He is now considered one of New Zealand’s master storytellers.

For the past decade an author and storyteller, his travel’s have taken him all over Aotearoa. Back blocks, city blocks, corporate boardrooms and classrooms.

This is land he loves. A land often lonely, isolated, and edgy, where the shadow of the bush always lurks. Yet it is a land of light as well. He would say spiritual light. For the landscape and the Light are irrevocably linked in his art and tales.

This is the land of his stories, the land of his art.

He is the author of seven books for young people and is heavily influenced by the rip-roaring reads of his own childhood. His first book, Achtung Pavlova, is a glorious tongue-in-cheek homage to Stu’s boyhood heroes: Biggles, TinTin and the many punch-first-ask-questions-later characters that populated Boys Own annuals of his youth.
‘Crackling prose ..a triumph of kiwiana!’  wrote The New Zealand Herald.

Recently Stu teamed up with an old boyhood-friend, Ivan Clarke, to help create the book The Legend of the Lonely Dog, the film rights of which have subsequently been sold to Warner Bros.
 

He resides in Whangaparaoa, Hibiscus Coast with his wife and two adventure-loving boys; the inspiration of many of his books and tales.

Selected bibliography:

• Achtung Pavlova (Reed 2002).
• Cartoon Stew: How to Draw Your Own Cartoon Characters Step by Step (Big Bang 2002).
• Stu's Cartoon Sarfair: A Step by Step Guide to Cartooning a Jungle of Crazy Creatures from Aardvarks to Zebras (Big Bang 2002).
• Dusky Moana and the Shrine of the Shark (Reed 2005).
• Cryptoons!: How to Draw Monsters, Mummys, Martians and More! (Big Bang 2005).
• Fifty Cartoon Faces: How to Draw Wacky Cartoon Faces Using the Numbers 1-50 (Big Bang 2005).
• The Room of One Hundred Locks (Reed 2006).
• Ride of the Kakapo (Pearson Education 2007).
• Lake of the Dead (Pearson Education 2009).
• Deep Ark 6 (Pearson Education 2009).
• Rat Island (Pearson Education 2011).

Storylines thanks zeald.com for their ongoing support of the Storylines website.