I write stories on people, culture, history and landscape. I have published two books, fiction and non-fiction, with a third, a memoir, due out soon. I have also had a long career in journalism and continue to do selected non-fiction features.
Creative Non-fiction
The Unfortunate Lunatic
I have finished a quest to find my grandmother who spent much of her time in and out of Porirua Mental Hospital between 1922 to 1949, and as a result was often hidden in family story-telling. During my search I uncovered the controversial death of my 33-year-old great-grandfather in 1896 at Ashburn Hall, Dunedin, and the Government Inquiry that followed. Now The Unfortunate Lunatic is about to be launched.
Read an early endorsement by Dr Lucy O’ Hagan, author of Everything But The Medicine: A Doctor’s Tale.
“So gripping, so moving, so well written. There is such tenderness towards those who were marginalized and stigmatized by mental illness, their stories silenced in family shame. It’s enough to make you weep, quite a few times.
The author’s honest testimony about her own mental health, shifts the readers gaze, so the grandmother and great grandfather ‘lunatics’ are not seen as 'other', they are in me and in us.
It’s one of the bravest books I have ever read. Sometimes for writers the work is in ourselves. It is as if the author has to find a steadiness in her own story, to be able share its secrets with such grace.
I love the structure moving through different times, places, styles. There is detailed research, the gaps in the historical facts, filled with imagined stories of what might have happened. These are quirky but we roll with the need to imagine. In contrast there are research findings and reflections on what helps mental distress but somehow these different forms flow together.
The old family photos added a poignant dimension to the people.
The author took me through harrowing scenes in asylums but ultimately, I was left feeling steady, enlarged, with more room to move and with a deep admiration for a book that makes visible, then honours those who suffer mental illness.
Outstanding!
From fellow author and friend Cristina Sanders
”This captivating search into family madness across generations is, like Tess herself, both delightful and edgy. Honest, personal, and deeply affecting, it is a compassionate investigation into an illness that touches many kiwi families.”
Going the distance
In 2005 I published going the distance: Women Outdoors in New Zealand with Tandem Press Read a review here
See my blog for more examples of my creative non-fiction.
FICTION
Gone to Pegasus
My novel Gone To Pegasus was published by Makaro Press in March 2018. It 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.
Watch interview with University of Auckland's Ingenio magazine
Links to reviews
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
JOURNALISM
I am a freelancer for Hawke’s Bay magazine and online portal BayBuzz. Recent stories include one on solar power farming, a feature on Cape Sanctuary see https://baybuzz.co.nz/cape-sanctuary/ and most recently a story on Hawke’s Bay’s burgeoning river catchment groups https://baybuzz.co.nz/rural-grassroots-revolution-underway-in-hb/
Some of my favourite BayBuzz stories
https://baybuzz.co.nz/our-environment-is-hurting-too/
https://baybuzz.co.nz/biking-in-hawkes-bay-for-the-strong-and-fearless/
https://baybuzz.co.nz/he-waka-eke-noa/
Ingenio
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.
Auckland Now
I was the sole writer and editor for the University of Auckland's research publication Auckland Now. See all copies here.