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Profile
Tessa Duder is one of New Zealand’s leading writers for children
and young adults. She has won many awards for her work, in particular for the
Alex quartet, and was the first children’s writer to be honoured
with the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellowship.
Selected published works
Night Race to Kawau, 1982; Jellybean, 1985; Alex, 1987, Aim Children’s Book of the Year Award, Esther
Glen Medal Alex in Winter, 1989 Aim Children’s Book of the Year
Award, Esther Glen Medal; Alessandra – Alex in Rome, 1991, Aim
Children’s Book of the Year Award, Esther Glen Medal; Songs for Alex,
1992, Aim Children’s Book of the Year Award; The Tiggie Thompson Show,
1999, Ssenior Fiction category,1999 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards; Margaret Mahy — A Writer's Life, 2005;
Down to the Sea Again, 2005; Too Close to the Wind and Other Stories, 2006; Carpet of Dreams, 2006; Out of the Deep: Stories from New Zealand and the Pacific, (editor) 2007; Is She Still Alive? Scintillating Tales for Women of a Certain Age, 2008.
Biography
Tessa Duder was born in Auckland in 1940. She was an accomplished swimmer,
a silver medallist at the 1958 Cardiff Empire Games, national butterfly and
medley record holder (1958–59) and the first New Zealand Swimmer of the
Year in 1959. She began a career in journalism at the Auckland Star
in 1959. After she married in 1964 she spent several years overseas in England
and Pakistan, returning in 1971. She published her first book, Night Race
to Kawau, in 1982, and in 1985 she was awarded the Choysa Bursary for Children’s
Writers.
Duder has also edited various anthologies, and her non-fiction for adults includes a collection
of sea stories from well known New Zealanders and In Search of Eliza Marchetti,
the story of Duder’s search for her Italian roots.
It has been observed that Duder’s writing typically features “strong
female characters, an identifiably New Zealand setting, convincing New Zealand
English dialogue and a strongly dramatic plot”.
Each of the books in the critically acclaimed Alex quartet of novels,
about a young New Zealand swimmer, has won awards. They are among the best-loved
New Zealand books for young adults, and have been published in the United States,
United Kingdom and Australia and translated into several languages. A 2007 TV arts programme quest for New Zealand's 'greatest fictional character' placed Alex in a shortlist of five. The only character from a children's book alongside Fred Dagg, Wal and Dog from Footrot Flats and Beth and Jake Heke from Once Were Warriors.
Duder’s next series of books was the Tiggie trilogy, which included
The Tiggie Thompson Show (1999), Tiggie Thompson All at Sea
(2001) and Tiggie Thompson’s Longest Journey (2003).
Duder was the first children’s writer to be awarded the Meridian Energy
Katherine Mansfield Fellowship in 2003. Her other awards include the University
of Waikato Writers Fellowship in 1991, an Order of the British Empire in 1994
and the Margaret Mahy Medal and Lecture Award (the Storylines Children's Literature Charitable Trust's
recognition of distinction) in 1996. In 2006 she won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book (Night Race to Kawau) and in 2007 an Artists to Antarctica Fellowship. Duder was also instrumental in setting
up and promoting the Storylines Children's Literature Charitable Trust (formerly known as the New Zealand Children’s Book Foundation). She visits
schools all over New Zealand under the Writers-in-Schools scheme and, occasionally,
Australia, and is an occasional judge, reviewer and commentator on children's books. She received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waikato in October 2008, in recognition of services to literature, youth and the community.
She has four daughters, two grandchildren and lives in Auckland.
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