Bill Manhire was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, and joined the English Department at Victoria University, Wellington, in 1973, where he has held a Personal Chair since 1997. As a ‘young’ New Zealand poet of the late 1960s, he has ever since played a leading role in the development and promotion of the country’s contemporary poetry. Apart from a dozen collections, Manhire has edited several anthologies and, more recently, has also published short fiction, essays and interviews. His creative writing course set up at Victoria University in 1975 has been highly influential on young writers. It was transformed in 2000 into the Creative Writing Programme of the International Institute of Modern Letters. Five times the recipient of the New Zealand Book Award, he became the inaugural Te Mata New Zealand Poet Laureate in 1997 and was Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellow in Menton, France, in 2004.
His latest collection Wow is a PBS Winter Recommendation and is available to order here with 25% off for PBS Members.