Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
Dates in Sitka: 2018-11
Gina COLE (fiction writer, poet; from New Zealand) is of Fijian, Scottish, and Welsh descent. She is the author of Black Ice Matter, which won Best First Book of Fiction at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and the winner of the 2014 Auckland Pride Festival’s creative writing competition for the poem “Airport Aubade.” Cole’s work has been widely anthologized and she was a key note speaker at the 2017 Auckland Writers Festival and the Same Same But Different LGBTQIA+ Writing Festival. She is a Phd candidate at Massey University, School of English, researching speculative fiction and science fiction in Oceania. She was a 2018 Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa International Writing Program. She was also the 2018 writer in residence at the Sitka Island Institute.