Joanna Orwin

Joanna Orwin is a writer of fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Several of her books have been shortlisted for or have won awards, including Children's Book of the Year in 1985 and the Senior Fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book awards for Children and Young Adults in 2002. She lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Joanna Orwin
Born28 November 1944
Nelson
OccupationWriter
NationalityNew Zealand

Biography

Joanna Orwin was born on 28 November 1944 in Nelson.[1] She grew up in Nelson and family holidays at Lake Rotoiti helped to inspire her love of the New Zealand landscape.[2]

She cites some of her favourite childhood reading as myths and legends, adventure stories like Treasure Island and Swallows and Amazons, historical fiction by Rosemary Sutcliff, Henry Treece and Geoffrey Trease and fantasy such as The Chronicles of Narnia, At the Back of the North Wind, and The Jungle Book.[3]  

She won prizes for poetry and essay writing at Nelson College for Girls,[4] but went on to study botany and physical geography at university, graduating with a BSc (Hons) in botany,[2] and worked for the New Zealand Forest Service as a plant ecologist and a science editor.[3][5] Later she also worked as a consultant researcher, writer, and editor.[6]

Her writing includes scientific papers, articles for Te Ara,[7][8][9] non-fiction history texts, novels for children and young adults and short stories in anthologies such as Down to the Sea Again (HarperCollins, 2005) and the Annual (Gecko Press, 2016).[3] Her novels often carry underlying themes of the natural environment, New Zealand history, flora and fauna and Maori folklore and heritage,[10][11] and they are informed by her knowledge of geology and the landscape. The Ihaka novels are set in Delaware Bay, near Nelson. Guardian of the Land is set in Kaikoura and The Watcher in the Forest is set in the area around Murchison and Lewis Pass.[4]

She received history grants for her two adult non-fiction books.[12] Riccarton and the Deans Family: History and Heritage was shortlisted for the 2016 New Zealand Heritage Book and Writing Awards.[13][11]

Several of her children’s books have been shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults or named as Storylines Notable Books. Her two Ihaka novels were among the books mentioned by Tessa Duder in an article on the history of children's literature in New Zealand.[14]

She has three children and lives in Christchurch.[15]

Awards and Prizes 

In 2009, Joanna Orwin was the University of Otago College of Education / Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence.[16]

The Guardian of the Land won the Children's Book of the Year Award in 1985.[17] Owl won the Senior Fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2002.[18][19]

Bibliography 

Adult non-fiction

Four Generations from Maoridom: The Memoirs of Syd Cormack As Told to Joanna Orwin (Otago University Press, 1997)

Kauri: Witness to a Nation’s History (New Holland, 2004)[20][21]

Riccarton and the Deans family: History and Heritage (Bateman Publishing, 2015)[22]

Adult fiction

Shifting Currents (Joanna Orwin, 2020)

Collision (HarperCollins, 2009)[23][24]

Children’s and Young Adult fiction

Ihaka and the Summer Wandering, illustrated by Robyn Kahukiwa (Oxford University Press, 1982)[14]

Ihaka and the Prophecy, ill. Robyn Kahukiwa (Oxford University Press, 1984)[14]

The Guardian of the Land (Oxford University Press, 1985) reprinted in the Collins Modern New Zealand Classic series (Harper Collins, 2005)[25]

Watcher in the Forest (Oxford University Press, 1987)

The Tar Dragon, ill. Wendy Hodder (Scholastic, 1997)

Owl (Longacre Press, 2001)[26]

Out of Tune (Longacre Press, 2004)[10]

Kauri in My Blood: The Diary of Laura Ann Findlay, the Coromandel, 1921–24 [My Story series] (Scholastic, 2007)[27]

Sacrifice (HarperCollins, 2011)[28][29][30][31]

References
  1. "Interview with Joanna Orwin". Christchurch City Libraries. 2002. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  2. "About Joanna". Joanna Orwin New Zealand Author. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  3. "Joanna Orwin". Annual annual. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  4. Gilderdale, Betty (1991). Introducing twenty-one New Zealand children's writers. Hodder & Stoughton. pp. 114–117. ISBN 034054872X.
  5. "Joanna Orwin". Penguin Books New Zealand. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  6. "Joanna Orwin". Storylines. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  7. Orwin, Joanna (24 September 2007). "Southern beech forest". Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  8. Orwin, Joanna (24 September 2007). "Kauri forest". Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  9. Orwin, Joanna (1 July 2015). "Shrubs and small trees of the forest". Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  10. Keestra, Jenni (22 September 2004). "Joanna Orwin: Out of Tune". NZ herald. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  11. "Orwin, Joanna". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. January 2017. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  12. "New Zealand History Research Trust recipients". Manatu Taonga Ministry for Culture & Heritage. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  13. "Announcing the Shortlist!". The New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa Canterbury Branch. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  14. Duder, Tessa (5 December 2017). "The golden age of children's writing in New Zealand is now". The Spinoff. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  15. "Joanna Orwin". New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  16. "Four writers bound for Dunedin residency". The Big Idea. 11 December 2008. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  17. Pollock, Kerryn (9 August 2016). "Book of the year winners, 1982 to 2017". Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  18. "Past Winners: 2002". NZ Book Awards Trust. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  19. "New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults – Young Adult Fiction Award". Christchurch City Libraries. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  20. Agnew, Trevor (13 November 2004). "Orwin Kauri: Witness to a Nation's History". agnew reading. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  21. "Kauri at risk of extinction". RNZ. 9 December 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  22. Moore, Chris (14 January 2016). "Jane Deans would approve". New Zealand LIstener. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  23. Bohan, Edmund (1 June 2010). "Stirring times". New Zealand review of books Pukapuka Aotearoa. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  24. McKinney, Cushla (29 September 2009). "Shared history through different eyes". Otago Daily Times. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  25. Agnew, Trevor (25 November 2006). "The Guardian of the Land, Joanna Orwin, 1985, 2005". agnew reading. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  26. Paris, Susan (1 March 2001). "Love and other animals". New Zealand review of books Pukapuka Aotearoa. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  27. Agnew, Trevor (14 July 2007). "Kauri in My Blood Joanna Orwin". agnew reading. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  28. Crewe, Rachel (7 May 2012). "Book review: Sacrifice by Joanna Orwin". Booksellers New Zealand. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  29. Docherty, Bob (3 August 2011). "Sacrifice by Joanna Orwin". Bobs Books Blog. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  30. Lowe, Helen (22 January 2012). "What I'm Reading: "Sacrifice" by Joanna Orwin". Helen Lowe... on anything, really. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  31. "NZ Children's Book Reviews Interviews Joanna Orwin". New Zealand Children's Book Reviews. 15 September 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
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