Gregory Leo O’Brien (born 1961) is a New Zealand poet, painter and editor.

Life

Born in

Matamata Matamata () is a town in Waikato, New Zealand. It is located near the base of the Kaimai Ranges, and is a thriving farming area known for Thoroughbred horse breeding and training pursuits. It is part of the Matamata-Piako District, which takes ...

in 1961, O'Brien trained as a journalist in Auckland and worked as a newspaper reporter in Northland. He graduated from the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

. His work has appeared in ''Islands'', ''Landfall'', ''Sport'', ''Meanjin'' and ''Scripsi''. He lives in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

Awards and honours

* 1988 Sargeson Fellowship * 1995 Victoria University Writing Fellow * 1997

Landfall Essay Competition The ''Landfall'' Essay Competition is an annual competition open to New Zealand writers. It is judged by the current editor of the long-running literary magazine ''Landfall'' and the winning entry is published in a subsequent issue of the maga ...

* 1997

Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry The Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry is an award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, presented annually to the winner of the poetry category. The winner receives a 10,000 prize. History The New Zealand Book Awards were set up by the New Z ...

* 2005

LIANZA Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award The Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award was first awarded in 2002 by the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA). It aimed to encourage the production of the best non-fiction writing for young New Zealanders. The award was p ...

* 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Reference and Anthology * 2012

Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement is a New Zealand literary award established in 2003 by the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand), the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government. Each ...

In the

2014 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2014 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

, O'Brien was appointed a

Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have ren ...

, for services to the arts.

Works

"Rocks, Te Namu Pa, Taranaki"; "Untitled"; "Beausoleil", "European", ''Shearsman 59''
* ttp://jacketmagazine.com/35/obrien-jacket-arm.shtml "Wet Jacket Arm", ''Jacket 35'', Early 2008* Location of the Least Person (opening with the ‘Old Man South Road’ sequence), was published in Auckland in 1987 * Dunes and Barns (1988) * Man with a Child’s Violin (1990) * Great Lake (Sydney, 1991) * Malachi, a charming verse novella (Adelaide, 1993) * Days Beside Water, Auckland in 1993 * Winter I Was (Victoria University Press, 1999) * Afternoon of an Evening Train (Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2005)

Novel

* Diesel Mystic (1989),

Anthologies

Criticism

"''Running Dog'' The Poetry of Ken Bolton", ''Sport 16'': Autumn 1996
* ''After Bathing At Baxter's'', Victoria University Press, 2002. * ''News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore'' (Carcanet Press, Manchester, 2007) * ''A Nest of Singing Birds: 100 Years of the New Zealand School Journal'' (Learning Media Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand, 2007)

Editor

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, Gregory 1961 births Living people New Zealand journalists 20th-century New Zealand poets 20th-century New Zealand male writers New Zealand male poets University of Auckland alumni People from Matamata Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit