Photo: Provided
After telling the stories of writer Dame Ngaio Marsh, artist Frances Hodgkins and entertainers Hudson and Halls, biographer Joanne Drayton is turning her attention to the history of The New Zealand Listener.
It was first published in June 1939 as a weekly broadcasting guide for radio listeners, and has held its own against competition from other publications to be New Zealand's best-selling current affairs magazine.
Joanne's recently won the Stout Fellowship at Victoria University Wellington where she'll continue her research in those who wrote for The New Zealand Listener and those featured in it over the decades. That includes Joanne herself whose previous books have been Listener cover stories.
She says she's going in search of the stories behind the stories and if you have information or stories for her, you can be in touch through www.joannedrayton.net.
Joanne Drayton is an acclaimed New Zealand author whose output is globally recognised. Her book Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love was the winner of the Royal Society Te Aparangi Award for General Non-Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in May 2019, and The Search for Anne Perry was numbered in the top 10 non-fiction books on the New York Times list. Both The Search for Anne Perry and Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love have been optioned for feature films.
She has curated exhibitions and publishes in art history, theory and biography. She is writing an autobiography and carving a post-colonial chess set in response to the Lewis pieces in the British Museum.
