Visiting Writers Programme: Deborah Shepard
| Date: | Tuesday 5 Jun, 1pm - 2pm |
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| Location: | AUT City Campus WT Building, 1211 Auckland New Zealand |
The Visiting Writers Programme connects you to experienced authors, giving you the opportunity to engage in discussions with them about the production of their work. The next session in the series features Deborah Shepard.
About Deborah Shepard
Deborah Shepard is an Auckland biographer, oral historian, teacher of memoir and journal writing and also a life writing mentor for the New Zealand Society of Authors. She has an MA in Art History and a PhD in Film Studies and began her career as an art and film historian. Her books include:
- Giving Yourself to Life: A Journal of Pain, Hope and Renewal (Calico Publishing 2015)
- Her Life’s Work: Conversations with Five New Zealand Women (AUP, 2009)
- Between the Lives: Partners in Art (AUP, 2005)
- Reframing Women: A History of New Zealand Film (Harper Collins 2000)
The latter three books were critically acclaimed for documenting the contribution of women to the arts in New Zealand. In 2013 she was awarded an autumn residency at the Michael King Writers Centre in Auckland to work on a book about writing memoir and through that association began teaching courses in memoir at the writers’ centre and contributing to various events at the centre.
In 2015 she was commissioned by the New Zealand Society of Authors to conduct a series of oral history interviews with eight elder New Zealand: Philip Temple, Chris Else, Marilyn Duckworth, Joy Cowley, Owen Marshall, David Hill, Tessa Duder and Witi Ihimaera. The project was funded by an Award in Oral History from the Ministry of Heritage and Culture. In 2016 she completed an additional four interviews with Fiona Kidman, Albert Wendt, Patricia Grace and Vincent O’Sullivan for inclusion in a new Massey University Press book on New Zealand Authors and their writing lives.