I write stories on people, culture, history and landscape. Fiction, non-fiction and creative non-fiction.
Current projects
A creative non-fiction memoir Behind the Curtains: In search of my grandmother
A second novel The man with the potato hands
Published Fiction
My novel Gone To Pegasus was published by Makaro Press in March 2018.
Listen to Anne Else’s review on RNZ Nine to Noon 5/10/2018
Watch talk I gave at the Ladies' Litera-Tea (Women's Bookshop Event) 2/09/2018
Listen to interview about the novel on Radio New Zealand
Watch interview with University of Auckland's Ingenio magazine
Links to reviews
http://www.takahe.org.nz/t-95-tess-redgrave-gone-to-pegasus/
Review in New Zealand Books Summer 2018
https://landfallreview.com/everything-is-turning-to-sound/#more-3871
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/weekend-herald/20180505/282922386052446
https://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/book-review-gone-to-pegasus-by-tess-redgrave/
https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/madness-and-suffrage-dunedin’s-streets
Gone To Pegasus is about the frontier. Each of the main characters goes to their own frontier and to the physical frontier in colonial New Zealand. What they find there, and how they deal with it, impacts on their lives.
The novel is set mainly in Dunedin and the surrounding landscape in 1892-93 and covers a pivotal time in New Zealand history. In particular it shines a light on Victorian concepts of madness and Dr Truby King’s experiments at Seacliff Lunatic Asylum as well as intersecting with, and highlighting, New Zealand women’s struggle for the right to vote.
Non-Fiction
I was the editor of the University of Auckland's alumni magazine Ingenio from Autumn 2006 to Spring 2012. I then became Publications Team Leader and had oversight of the magazine and continued to contribute to it. I am now an ongoing contributor to the magazine.
See some of my favourite Ingenio stories here.
See profiles I wrote on Deb Chambers QC, author Vincent O'Sullivan and historian Aroha Harris.
See the magazine website below.
I was the sole writer and editor for the University of Auckland's research publication Auckland Now. See all copies here.
Throughout my time at the University I co-edited and contributed to University News.
Creative Non-Fiction
In 2005 I published going the distance: Women Outdoors in New Zealand.
See my blog for more recent examples of my creative non-fiction.
Gone to Pegasus continues to have life. A Sydney Book Club dined at Eichardt’s Hotel in Queenstown with me on 19 October, 2019. I talked about the history of the hotel and its esteemed proprietress (1882-1892)Mrs Julia Eichardt who features in the novel.