Big Weather

Gregory O'Brien is a Wellington-based writer, poet and artist. He is a prolific writer of non-fiction and poetry, and has edited two collections of poems with his partner Jenny Bornholdt, My Heart Goes Swimming: New Zealand Love Poems and The Colour of Distance: New Zealand Writers in France. He also co-edited with Jenny Bornholdt and Mark Williams An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English, which won the 1997 Montana Book Award for Poetry. A painter and printmaker, Gregory has held solo exhibitions and participated in group shows, and his work was exhibited at Black Barn Gallery in 2013. He is the recipient of several arts awards, and was the Frank Sargeson Fellow in 1988, Victoria University Writer-in-Residence in 1995 and Stout Memorial Fellow in 2015. In 2012 Gregory was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement (Non-fiction) and was made an Arts Foundation Laureate in the same year. In 2013 he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the arts.