Owen Marshall's Autobiography
Most of my life has been spent in the South Island towns of Blenheim, Oamaru and Timaru, although I was born in Te Kuiti in 1941. I grew up part of a family in which the world of literature and that of physical experience were equally valued. My father, a Methodist minister, passed on to me a love of books and an enthusiasm for nature and landscape.
After graduating MA (Hons) in History from the University of Canterbury, I became a full time secondary school teacher. I was deputy and acting Rector at Waitaki Boys' High School, and deputy principal at Craighead Diocesan School. In the early nineties, after being the University of Canterbury's Writer in Residence and holding the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago, I resigned from full time teaching in order to have more time for my fiction. Since then most of my time has been devoted to writing, although I also lecture at Canterbury where I was awarded an honorary D Litt in 2002 , and appointed an adjunct professor in 2005.
I have published or edited twenty three books, including novels, short stories and poetry. I live in Timaru with my wife, Jackie, and we have two adult daughters, Andrea and Belinda. Despite the visual and naturalistic elements sometimes remarked on in my writing, I'm more of an impressionist than a strict realist, and the psychological landscapes of my fellow New Zealanders are my fundamental concern. My interest is in mood and character more than plot and action, and a search to capture the fragrance of experience, rather than experience itself. What I look for in all the arts, is some insight into the business of living.