Kerry Sunderland
Website:
kerrysunderlandwriter.com Facebook: facebook.com/kerrysunderlandwriter/ instagram.com/kerrysunderlandwriter/ |
Kerry Sunderland is an Australian New Zealand writer who moved to Aotearoa in late 2012. She is now based in Te Tauihu, the top of the South Island, where she has been the curator of the Nelson Arts Festival’s literary programme since 2018.
She has an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington and was joint winner of the 2018 Hachette Mentorship for her unpublished manuscript, Beyond the Blue Door. Her personal essay ‘Mother Issues’ appears in Otherhood: Essays on being childfree, childless and child adjacent (MUP, 2024), a short memoir titled ‘The Eagle’s Gift’ was published in A Liminal Gathering (Elixir & Star Press, 2023) and her personal essay, ‘Scared to Death’, was published in Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety (THWUP, 2018). A freelance journalist since the late 90s, Kerry’s words have been published in New Zealand Geographic, NZ Listener, North & South, The Spinoff, Stuff/Nelson Mail, Wild Tomato, as well as the Byron Echo, Inside Film, and Metro Magazine in Australia. Kerry also has broadcast experience as a film reviewer (ABC Northcoast, Australia) and radio presenter/producer (Fresh FM, Nelson, NZ). In 2021, she launched the radio show and podcast, Deathwalker’s Guide to Life. Since then, she has conducted more than 30 in-depth conversations with her fellow travellers – including everyone from songwriters and storytellers, palliative care physicians and home-based death care practitioners, funeral celebrants and interfaith ministers, to septuagenarian climate activists and comedians. In 2024, Kerry received a NZSA | CLNZ Research Grant to research and start writing a book based on her journey to become a deathwalker and her work to improve death literacy. |
