Elizabeth Knox
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Elizabeth Knox ONZM |
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Elizabeth Knox in October 2012.
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| Born |
15 February 1959 Wellington, New Zealand |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | New Zealander |
| Period | 1987– |
| Notable works | The Vintner's Luck |
| Spouse | Fergus Barrowman |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | |
| www |
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Elizabeth Fiona Knox, ONZM, (born 15 February 1959, in Wellington, New Zealand) is an award-winning New Zealand writer. She has authored eleven novels, three autobiographical novella, and a collection of essays. Her best known works are The Vintner's Luck, which won several awards, has been published in nine languages, and has been made into a film of the same name by Niki Caro, and The Dreamhunter Duet, a literary fantasy series for teen readers. Her most recent novel was Mortal Fire, published in 2013, which has won several awards.
Elizabeth and her two sisters were born and raised by atheist parents in a household where religion was often debated. They spent their childhood living in various small towns in New Zealand, including Pomare, Wadestown, Waikanae and Paremata. She later published a trilogy of novels that were influenced by her childhood experiences of living near Wellington. Knox had difficulties with writing when she was young because she was slightly dyslexic.
Knox had always enjoyed inventing stories as a child. When she was eleven she created an oral narrative history with her younger sister Sara and its characters and plot evolved based on their input along with the input of their older sister Mary and their friend Carol. It became an elaborate paracosm with many characters and intricate plotlines and involvements. When she was sixteen Knox's father overheard a discussion between her, her sisters and Carol regarding the consequences of a secret treaty set in their imaginary world and he remarked that he hoped they were writing this down. Following this they all tried "writing stories about, letters between, and poems by their characters" and Knox enjoyed it so much that she decided she would like to be a writer.
In 1983, when Knox was 24, she started a degree in English Literature at Victoria University of Wellington. A year later, she started work on After Z-Hour in Bill Manhire's Original Composition course at Victoria. The novel was inspired by a memory she had of when was eleven and fell from a walnut tree on ANZAC Day. In hospital she overheard a conversation between an old man and her father about Passchendaele and life on the Salient in 1917. Bill Manhire encouraged her to write her novel, and told her he would be more interested in seeing her complete it, than her degree. After Z-Hour was published in 1987 by Victoria University Press and Knox graduated from Victoria University of Wellington the same year. She was also awarded the ICI Young Writers Bursary award that year.
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