Latest News

19 May 2020

During the Covid19 lockdown I finished volume 2 of Life As a Novel, a biography of Maurice Shadbolt. This should be published by early next year.

If you are interested in my explorations in West Papua nearly 60 years ago – told in my 2002 book The Last True Explorer –  you can hear my recent podcast interview about those times on www.thewildpodcast.com  There may be a later one about the South Indian Ocean Expedition to Heard Island with Bill Tilman. Work is still continuing in Australia on a documentary about that.

If you are interested in the Wakefield family and the New Zealand Company – see my book A Sort of Conscience The Wakefields (2002) – look out for a documentary on Radio New Zealand’s National Programme in the series ‘Black Sheep’. This has been held up by Covid19 but should air soon.

Finally, the superb photo by John McDermott that features on my home page is from Deborah Shepard’s fine book The Writing Life (2018) in which she interviews 12 New Zealand authors for the NZ Society of Authors oral history project .