Ella West

Ella West was born in Invercargill and when, as a child, she had read through the children’s library, she used her older brother’s card and began on the adult section. While studying literature at Victoria University, a holiday job reporting at The Southland Times taught her the craft of writing and eventually led her to the West Coast where she married a shearer and together they went dairy farming on the banks of the Buller River. It was there, between getting the cows in for milking, teaching drama and raising two sons, that she wrote Thieves.

Selected bibliography:

• Thieves (Longacre Press 2006).
• Anywhere But Here (Longacre Press 2008).
• Real Life (Longacre Press 2009).

Awards:

• Louis Johnson/Creative New Zealand Bursary for New Writers 2006