Master of Creative Writing

Recent Books

Featured here are recent books by alums of the Master of Creative Writing programme at the University of Auckland, many of which were written during the MCW year.

Rua MCW Books

Rua

Candice Tutauha's debut novel Rua is about a young Maori woman learning to navigate the world on her own terms. She dreams of becoming a writer and one day moving to New York City to begin a life far removed from the one she knows. In her tight-knit community, where…
Candice Tutauha
September 30, 2026
A Sky Full of Fire MCW Books

A Sky Full of Fire

Sarah Ell's latest book, A Sky Full of Fire, is set in Rotorua district, 1886. Englishman Cyprian Marsh has been despatched to the colonies in pursuit of his wayward halfbrother. The only clue is the beautiful but mysterious Alice Bright, who has led him from the whorehouses of Melbourne to…
Sarah Ell
September 30, 2026
You Envy The Coutinhos MCW Books

You Envy The Coutinhos

Michelle D'costa's debut novel You Envy the Coutinhos is a darkly comic account of a migrant family’s life in the Gulf and the repercussions back home. Joachim Coutinho’s life in Mangalore is in a rut: a ne’er-do-well father, a mother and sister to provide for, never enough money, and dreams…
Michelle D'costa
September 26, 2026
LIT MCW Books

LIT

Anna Wood's debut novel, LIT, is a literary-suspense thriller about Gin, an architect on the brink. LIT, the Auckland-based practice she shares with her girlfriend, Clary, has been precarious since their third partner—Clary’s ex, Billy—disappeared, presumed dead. Now, several years later, LIT’s financial problems and Gin’s personal debts are snowballing. When…
Anna Woods
June 8, 2026
Slash MCW Books

Slash

Gavin Strawhan's second novel, Slash, features ex-police sergeant Honey Chalmers, whom readers were first introduced to in his debut, The Call. Honey isn't doing too well. She's drinking too much, eating too little, working casual gigs for a shady firm of private investigators, and chatting to a ghost. When a…
Gavin Strawhan
May 22, 2026
The End and the Beginning MCW Books

The End and the Beginning

The End and the Beginning, KJ Holdom's debut novel, is based on the true story of a fourteen-year-old boy's experience fleeing a Hitler youth camp in the final days of the Second World War. Max Bernot's parents, Anton and Marguerite, do their best to shield Max and his sister, Anna,…
KJ Holdom
April 24, 2026
The Emotion Dealer MCW Books

The Emotion Dealer

Jack Remiel Cottrell's second book, The Emotion Dealer, is a kaleidoscopic exploration of technology, art, cities, capitalism, disinformation, loneliness and greed. It is a guide for our troubled moment and a book that will make you wonder what—if anything—we are leaving for those who come after us. 'Thematically, Cottrell’s stories…
Jack Remiel Cottrell
December 20, 2025
Good Things Come and Go MCW Books

Good Things Come and Go

NZ Listener Best Books List 2025. Josie Shapiro's second novel moves from LA to the Coromandel, exploring heartbreak and dark secrets, friendship and homecoming. It's also an ode to taking risks no matter the consequences. After the death of their young daughter, Penny Whittaker and Adam Riggs are struggling. Penny's…
Josie Shapiro
December 20, 2025
The Secret Green MCW Books

The Secret Green

Winner of Storylines Notable Book Awards 2025 - Junior Fiction List. Almost a year has passed since Nissa Marshall was found alive after miraculously surviving a month lost in the vast, dense, isolated wilds of Te Rua-o-te-Moko Fiordland, but her heart still remains there. When one connection to her former…
Sonya Wilson
December 20, 2025
Pastoral Care MCW Books

Pastoral Care

Winner of the Hubert Church Prize for Fiction - Best First Book. John Prins' debut short story collection Pastoral Care is the second title in the Landfall Tauraka Short Stories series, following Ockham shortlisted Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn. The nine stories centre on daily life in twenty-first-century Aotearoa New Zealand,…
John Prins
August 29, 2025
The Spirit of a Place MCW Books

The Spirit of a Place

Sarah Ell's latest book, The Spirit of a Place: A New History of The Elms Te Papa Tauranga, is a portrait of one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most important heritage sites, bearing witness to more than six hundred years of significant and at times turbulent history. She traces this legacy that…
Sarah Ell
July 16, 2025
See How They Fall MCW Books

See How They Fall

Winner of the inaugural Phoenix Prize 2023. See How They Fall is set in Australia, amongst the privileged Turner family. The novel follows the tragic aftermath of a dinner at the family's secluded compound, Yallambee. Through the eyes of two protagonists, Skye Turner, who has married into the dynasty, and…
Rachel Paris
April 2, 2025
No One Will Know MCW Books

No One Will Know

Set against the stunning backdrop of a windswept island and its mysterious lighthouse, Rose Carlyle’s second novel, No One Will Know, establishes her as an author in command of the page-turner. This thriller reveals the terrible consequences of greed, lies and fatal mistakes. ‘No One Will Know is a breathtaking, twisty read…
Rose Carlyle
April 2, 2025
The Call MCW Books

The Call

Winner of the Allen & Unwin Fiction Prize 2023. After surviving a brutal attack, Auckland cop DS Honey Chalmers has returned to her hometown to care for her mother. The remote coastal settlement of Waitutū holds complicated memories for Honey, not least the tragic suicide of her younger sister, Scarlett.…
Gavin Strawhan
May 10, 2024
Amma MCW Books

Amma

Singapore, 1951 When Josephina is a girl, her parents lock her in a room with the father of the boy to whom she's betrothed. What happens next will determine the lives of generations to come. New Zealand, 1984 Josephina and her family leave Sri Lanka for New Zealand. But their…
Saraid de Silva
May 10, 2024
Ndima Ndima MCW Books

Ndima Ndima

From the red soil of her garden in Southgate 1, a crowded suburb of Harare, Nyeredzi watches the world. She knows not to venture beyond the grasses that fence them off from the bush, where the city’s violent criminals and young lovers claim the night. But on this red soil,…
Tsitsi Mapepa
May 10, 2024
Before George MCW Books

Before George

When Marnya immigrates to New Zealand from South Africa in 1953 with her mother and sister, her mother cuts off Marnya’s hair and changes her name to George to hide her identity as a girl. Hours later, their Christmas Eve train plummets into the Whangaehu River and George loses not…
Deborah Robertson
May 10, 2024
Golden Days MCW Books

Golden Days

Golden Days is the story of the intense late-teen 1995 friendship between bookish Becky and star-dusted Zoe Golden—music, clubs, art collaboration, spirituality, sex—and what happens when one terrifying night changes their lives and destroys their friendship forever. We meet first-person protagonist Becky again seventeen years later, drunk for days and mourning…
Caroline Barron
May 10, 2024
Rough Lives Speak MCW Books

Rough Lives Speak

Rough Lives Speak, the anthology by Street Poets & Artists Collective Enterprise. SPACE is made up of eight poets and an artist--seven poets published in this book. Voices in this book speak straight from the heart of former rough sleepers honed through poetry workshops and now a publication in collaboration…
Daren Kamali
May 10, 2024
Barefoot MCW Books

Barefoot

Shortlisted in the NZSA New Zealand Heritage Literary Awards 2021 and the NZ Booklovers Awards 2023. Wellington, 1939. A hot summer’s day at a church picnic. Adelaide watches as a girl is rescued from the river and resolves to meet the unassuming hero of the moment. After a claustrophobic, strict…
RV Bayley
May 10, 2024
Na Viro MCW Books

Na Viro

Appearing before the head of the Academy for fighting at her graduation ceremony, puffer ship navigator Tia Grom-Eddy must either join the crew of a spaceship on a deep space mission or complete a lengthy probationary period on Earth. Mortally afraid of travelling into deep space, Tia chooses probation. Estranged…
Gina Cole
May 10, 2024
Isobar Precinct MCW Books

Isobar Precinct

Shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Awards and the NZ Booklovers Awards 2022. Lestari Aris is a woman on the edge. Her tattoo studio on Karangahape Road is hammered by burglaries; the hangers-on in her life, from a teenage runaway to a married cop, are bonded to her for reasons she…
Angelique Kasmara
May 10, 2024