Lynley Hood

Hood was born in 1942 in Hamilton, New Zealand. She has an MSc in Physiology, and LittD from University of Otago. She currently lives in Dunedin.^[1][2]

Hood worked in medical research until 1979, after which she worked as a freelance writer.^[1] She has published a number of biographies and non-fiction works. She has also been published in New Zealand Books, the Otago Daily Times, the New Zealand Listener, New Zealand Author, and North & South.^[1]

• Sylvia! The Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1989), a biography of author Sylvia Ashton-Warner
• Who is Sylvia? The Diary of a Biography (1990)
• Minnie Dean: Her Life & Crimes (1994), a biography of Minnie Dean, the only woman to receive the death penalty in New Zealand
• City Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Crèche Case (2001)

Sylvia! The Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner won first prize at the 1980 Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards.^[3] It also won the 1989 PEN Best First Book of Prose Award and 1990 Talking Book of the Year.^[1]

Minnie Dean: Her Life & Crimes was a finalist in the 1995 New Zealand Book Awards.^[1]

In 2002, City Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case won the Readers' Choice Award and the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.^[3] It also won the 2002 NZ Skeptics Bravo Award.^[4]

Hood received the 1991 Robert Burns Fellowship.^[5]