Joanna Preston (born 1972) is an Australian poet, editor and creative writing tutor based in New Zealand. She has published two award-winning collections of poetry.

Life and career

Preston was born in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1972, and grew up in rural

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. She moved to

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, New Zealand, in 1994. In 2001 she won first place in an international

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...

competition judged by Jim Kacian. From 2003 to 2006 she lived in England, where she obtained a MPhil in creative writing from the University of Glamorgan. Her first collection of poems, ''The Summer King'', was published in 2008. It won the inaugural

Kathleen Grattan Award The Kathleen Grattan Award is one of New Zealand's top poetry awards. It is named after Kathleen Grattan, an Auckland poet, who died in 1990. The award was first made in 2008. History The Kathleen Grattan Award is a prestigious poetry prize for ...

for the best original collection of poetry by a New Zealand or Pacific resident or citizen, and the

Mary Gilmore Award __NOTOC__ The Mary Gilmore Award is currently an annual Australian literary award for poetry, awarded by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Since being established in 1956 as the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, it has been award ...

for the best first collection by an Australian poet. The poems in the collection were mainly produced during her studies at the University of Glamorgan, and its publication by Otago University Press was part of the Kathleen Grattan Award. The '' Waikato Times'' described it as a "dazzling debut", with her poems "beautifully worked, insightful, emotionally gentle yet unsettling". She was the editor of ''takahē'' magazine from 2014 to 2016. Together with

James Norcliffe James Norcliffe is a novelist, short story writer, poet, editor, teacher and educator. His work has been widely published and he has been the recipient of a number of writing residencies. Several of his books have been shortlisted for or won award ...

, she was the editor of an anthology of earthquake poems written shortly after the

2010 Canterbury earthquake The 2010 Canterbury earthquake (also known as the Darfield earthquake) struck the South Island of New Zealand with a moment magnitude of 7.1 at on , and had a maximum perceived intensity of X (''Extreme'') on the Mercalli intensity scale. Som ...

and subsequent earthquakes, titled ''Leaving the Red Zone'' and published in 2016. She has said that the experience of the Canterbury earthquakes led to her and her students writing many poems. She has also edited a number of anthologies for the New Zealand Poetry Society. Her second collection of poems, ''Tumble'', won the

Mary and Peter Biggs 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 ...

at the 2022

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand. The awards began in 1996 as the merger of two literary awards events: the New Zealand Book Awards, which ran from 1976 to 1995, and the Goodman Fielder W ...

. Judge

Saradha Koirala Saradha Koirala (born 19 July 1980) is a New Zealand poet and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of three poetry collections and two Young Adult novels. Koirala also writes literature reviews and has interviewed internationa ...

said of Preston's work: "Simply written, yet dramatic and powerfully eloquent, each poem in this book is a banger." Reviewer Chris Tse had predicted it would win the top prize in advance of the ceremony, describing it as "a wide-ranging collection that traces the paths we take in life, and reflects on the experiences and wisdom we gain from our travels".

Selected works

Poetry collections

* ''The Summer King'' ( Otago University Press, 2008) * ''Tumble'' (Otago University Press, 2021)

As editor

* ''Listening to the Rain: an anthology of Christchurch haiku and haibun'' (with Cyril Childs) (Small White Teapot Haiku Group, 2002) * ''A Savage Gathering'' (New Zealand Poetry Society, 2002) * ''The Infinity We Swim In'' (New Zealand Poetry Society, 2007) * ''Before the Sirocco'' (New Zealand Poetry Society, 2008) * ''Leaving the Red Zone: poems from the Canterbury earthquakes'' (with

) (Clerestory Press, 2016) * ''Broken Lines: In Charcoal'' (with Karen Zelas) (Pūkeko Publications, 2020)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Preston, Joanna 1972 births Living people 21st-century Australian poets 21st-century Australian women writers 21st-century New Zealand poets 21st-century New Zealand women writers Writers from Sydney Alumni of the University of Glamorgan