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Laurence Fearnley
Photo Credit: Dave Fearnley

Laurence Fearnley

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Laurence Fearnley is an award-winning novelist. Her novel The Hut Builder won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. In 2014 her novel Reach was longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and, in 2008, Edwin and Matilda was runner-up in the fiction category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Her second novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. In 2004 Fearnley was awarded the Artists to Antarctica Fellowship and in 2007 the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. In 2016 she won the NZSA/ Janet Frame Memorial Award and in 2017 she was the joint winner of the Landfall essay competition. She was named a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate in 2019. She lives in Dunedin.

Awards & recognition

Arts Foundation Laureate

Awarded  •  2019  •  Arts Foundation Laureate

More features

Article
Find your perfect winter read!

Temperatures are dropping, the nights are getting darker and it’s the perfect time to find a cozy spot to curl up with a good book . . .

Article
Winter Time book club notes

Laurence Fearnley shares notes and discussion questions on her new book Winter Time in this book club guide.

Article
Scented - book club guide

Laurence Fearnley shares her process for writing Scented along with discussion points, ideas and questions for your next book club meeting. 

Article
Laurence Fearnley's signature perfume

In Scented, our protagonist Siân, fascinated by the art of perfumery from childhood and recently made redundant from her job, decides to build her signature scent note by note in an effort to better understand her identity. 

Article
Short story club - 7 December

Read the story being discussed on Jesse Mulligan’s show on Radio New Zealand on 7 December 2017