Alison Wong (born 1960) is a New Zealand

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

and novelist of

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. Her background in mathematics comes across in her poetry, not as a subject, but in the careful formulation of words to white space and precision. She has a half-Chinese son with New Zealand poet Linzy Forbes. She now lives in

Geelong Geelong ( ) ( Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the south eastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon ...

Career and awards

Wong's first novel ''As the Earth Turns Silver'' was published in late June 2009 by Penguin NZ and won the fiction award at the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards. Wong has received various other awards for her fiction and poetry including the 2002

Robert Burns Fellowship The Robert Burns Fellowship is a New Zealand literary residency. Established in 1958 to coincide with bicentennial celebrations of the birth of Robert Burns, it is often claimed to be New Zealand's premier literary residency. The list of past ...

at the

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, a

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- New Zealand Society of Authors Fellowship at the Stout Research Centre and a NZ Founders Society Research Award. She has been a finalist in several poetry competitions and received grants from Creative NZ and the Willi Fels Memorial Trust. Her first poetry collection, ''Cup'', was released in February 2006 by Steele Roberts. It was shortlisted for a poetry prize in the Montana Book awards. In 2003 she was a guest writer at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival and the Wordstruck! Festival in Dunedin, as well as a speaker for the Stout Research Centre Chinese New Zealand Seminar Series. In 2001 together with Linzy Forbes, she received a Porirua City Council Civic Honour Award for co-founding and running Poetry Cafe.

References

External links

Alison Wong Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wong, Alison 1960 births Living people New Zealand women poets New Zealand women novelists New Zealand people of Chinese descent 21st-century New Zealand novelists 21st-century New Zealand women writers