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Head of School
Professor Bill Fish
Turitea Site
Palmerston North
Phone: +64 6 951 6559
Email: W.J.Fish@massey.ac.nz
Contact details +64 (06) 356 9099
Dr Joan Fleming PhD, BA, MA
Senior Tutor
School of Humanities Media and Creative CommI hold a PhD in Creative Writing from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, a Masters in English Literature from Otago University in Dunedin, a Masters in Creative Writing from the IIML at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellinton, and a BA in English from Victoria University. I am the author of the post-collapse verse novel Song of Less (Cordite Books, 2022), the poetry collections Failed Love Poems (THWUP, 2015) and The Same as Yes (THWUP, 2011), and the pamphlets Some People's Favourites (Desperate Literature, 2019) and Two Dreams in Which Things are Taken (DUETS, 2010). My debut novel The Fig Book, a tragicomic ecological folktale, is forthcoming in 2027 with Allen & Unwin in Australia and New Zealand and Mariner Books in the US.
My creative nonfiction and essays on craft and auto-ethnography can be found in The Pantograph Punch, Verge, Westerly, Cordite Poetry Review, Reading Walking Writing and Correspondence 1.1 and 1.2 from The Physics Room, Island, and Bonsai: best small stories from Aotearoa. 鈥My scholarship can be found in Meanjin, JEASA, Biography, Philosophy Activism Nature, and Truth and Beauty: Verse Biography in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. My poetry can be found in journals such as Poetry London, Westerly, Australian Book Review, Cordite, Cortland Review, Starling, Australian Poetry Journal, Sweet Mammalian, Minarets, Sport, Landfall, Hue & Cry, the Newcastle Poetry Prize anthology, The Best of Best New Zealand Poems, Essential New Zealand Poetry: Facing the Empty Page, The Everyday Poet: Poems to live by, The Unamuno Author Series Festival Anthology, Bonsai: best small stories from Aotearoa, and No Other Place to Stand: An Anthology of Climate Change Poetry. My honours include the Biggs Poetry Prize, the Verge Prize for Poetry, the Harri Jones Memorial Prize from the Hunter Writers' Centre, a Creative New Zealand writing fellowship, a Michael King Writers' Centre residency. In 2021 my manuscript Dirt was shortlisted for the Helen Anne Bell poetry bequest. In 2025 I was the Kaipukahu Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato.
I am P膩keha/Kardiya, of English, Irish, Scottish, Australian and New Zealand ancestry, and I am a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism. My pronouns are she/her.
I hold a PhD in Creative Writing from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, a Masters in English Literature from Otago University in Dunedin, and a Masters in Creative Writing from the IIML at Victoria University. I am the author of the verse novel Song of Less from Cordite Books, and two collections of poetry, Failed Love Poems and The Same as Yes from Te Herenga Waka University Press. My debut novel The Fig Book is forthcoming in 2027 (Allen & Unwin, Mariner Books). I've taught for Massey since 2009.
Professional
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing - Monash University (2018)
- Bachelor of Arts - Victoria University (2007)
- Master of Arts (Distinction) - Victoria University (2008)
Research Expertise
Research Interests
I am interested in supervising Masters and PhD projects in creative non-fiction, life writing, eco-fiction and eco-non-fiction, literary fiction, poetry, and cross-genre hybrid projects. My areas of research and supervision expertise are in the environmental humanities, feminist writing, ecocriticism, ecopoetics, auto-ethnography, 'writing back' and re-versioning, contemporary poetics, cross-cultural theory traditions, creative practice in collaboration with visual artists, and writing in the Anthropocene. I am particularly interested in bringing humour, playfulness, and the absurd into storytelling around the ecological emergency. I am drawn to work and writing that demonstrates an ethos of inquiry across lines of difference, whether they be social, cultural, or with the more-than-human world.
Area of Expertise
Field of research codes
Languages, Communication And Culture (200000):
Literary Studies (200500):
Studies In Creative Arts And Writing (190000)
Consultancy and Languages
Languages
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Spanish
Last used: 2026
Spoken ability: Average
Written ability: Average
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Last updated on Monday 24 February 2025