Bill Manhire was born in Invercargill and educated at the Universities of Otago and London. He founded and until recently directed the famous creative writing program at Victoria University. In 2015 he was the UNESCO Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Bill was New Zealand’s inaugural poet laureate. His most recent book is a Selected Poems, which gathers work from a range of earlier prize-winning volumes. He is particularly well known for his collaborative work — in the visual arts with Ralph Hotere, in science with the physicist Sir Paul Callaghan, and in music with the composer Norman Meehan. He has edited major anthologies of New Zealand short stories, including the now classic Some Other Country. His own short fiction has appeared in New Zealand as well as internationally in journals such as Chelsea, London Magazine, PN Review and Meanjin.