Kate Camp
New Zealand poet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kate Camp (born 1972) is a New Zealand poet and author who resides in Wellington.[1]
Kate Camp | |
|---|---|
 Camp in 2012 | |
| Born | 1972 (age 53–54) Wellington, New Zealand |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | Victoria University of Wellington |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Notable works | Unfamiliar Legends of the Stars |
| Notable awards | NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry |
Early life and education
Camp was born in 1972 in Wellington, New Zealand. She attended Onslow College.[2] She has a BA in English from the Victoria University of Wellington.[3]
Career
Poems by Camp have appeared in the Best New Zealand Poems series in 2001,[4] 2002,[5] 2003,[6] 2010,[7] 2012,[8] and 2013.[9] She has also been published in numerous literary magazines, including Landfall, New Zealand Books, New Zealand Listener, Sport, Takahe, Brick (Canada), Akzente (Germany) and Qualm (England).[3][10]
Camp hosted a monthly radio segment, 'Kate's Klassics' on Kim Hill's radio show Saturday Morning on Radio New Zealand National.[11] Camp currently works at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa as the head of marketing and communications.[12]
Awards
At the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Camp's collection, Unfamiliar Legends of the Stars, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry.[13][14]
In 2011, The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls won the award for poetry at the New Zealand Post Book Awards[13] and was shortlisted for the Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award.[3] In 2013, Snow White’s Coffin was a finalist in the Poetry category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards.[3]
In 2006 and 2004 she was shortlisted for the Glenn Schaeffer Prize in Modern Letters.[15]
Residencies and fellowships
Camp was a Writer in Residence at Waikato University in 2002. At the conclusion of the residency, her collection On Kissing was published by Four Winds Press.[3]
In 2011 she received the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers’ Residency[16] and in 2016 she received the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship.[17]
Selected works
Camp has published several collections of poems including:
- Unfamiliar Legends of the Stars (1998, Victoria University Press)
- Realia (2001, Victoria University Press)
- Beauty Sleep (2005, Victoria University Press)
- The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls (2010, Victoria University Press)
- Snow White’s Coffin (2013, Victoria University Press)
- The Internet of Things (2017, Victoria University Press)
- How to Be Happy Though Human: New and Selected Poems (2020, Victoria University Press)
- Makeshift Seasons (2025, Te Herenga Waka University Press)
In 2002 she published the collection of essays On Kissing.[18]
In 2022 she published the memoir You Probably Think This Song Is About You (Te Herenga Waka University Press).[19] Newsroom made it its book of the week.[20]
In 2026 she published her 1986 diary, written when she was a teenager. Leather & Chains: My 1986 Diary (Te Herenga Waka University Press)[21]
