Adrienne Jansen

Adrienne Anne Jansen (born 1947) is a New Zealand creative writing teacher, editor, writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and publisher. She has worked closely with immigrants, and her writing often relates to the migrant experience.

Biography Adrienne Jansen was born in Wellington in 1947.

She worked as a writer at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa for 11 years. In the 1980s, she helped set up the Porirua Language Project (now part of English Language Partners). This background and her years of experience of living and working among immigrants is reflected in her writing (both fiction and non-fiction), which often focuses on the migrant experience.

Her published work includes fiction and non-fiction for adults and children, collections of poetry, short stories broadcast on radio and poems and stories in anthologies such as 4th Floor and Best New Zealand Poems. Her stories have been highly commended in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition ("War", 2002) and shortlisted for the BNZ Literary Awards.

In 1990, Jansen was a Winston Churchill Fellow, travelling to Canada and the United Kingdom to look at access to education for disadvantaged groups in those countries. She was coordinator of the programme until 1999 and taught fiction and editing as well as writing several online courses until most of the programme was disestablished in 2019. She was co-founder of Whitireia Creative Writing Programme's Escalator Press in 2013 and writing festivals.

In the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours, Jansen was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to writing and publishing.

She lives in Titahi Bay, Porirua. The Crescent Moon: The Asian Face of Islam in New Zealand, with photographs by Ans Westra (Asia New Zealand Foundation, 2009) Abdel's Favourites from the Marrakech Café, with Abdelghani El Adraoui (Marrakech Café, 2013) Migrant Journeys: New Zealand Taxi Drivers Tell Their Stories, with co-author Liz Grant (Bridget Williams Books, 2015)

Children's non-fiction Borany's story (Learning Media, 1991), shortlisted for the LIANZA Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award in 1992 Thirteen flavours (Learning Media, 1995) Asli's story (Learning Media, 2000) I say, you say (Learning Media, 2001) What's the difference? (Learning Media, 2001) Fear (Learning Media, 2002) A pot of gold; and, The clever farmer : folk tales from Vietnam (Learning Media, 2003)

Novels Spirit Writing (Harper Collins, 1999) Floating the Fish on Bamboo (Harper Collins, 2001) The Score (Escalator Press, 2013) Light Keeping (Quentin Wilson Publishing, 2023)

Poetry A stone seat and a shadow tree (Inkweed, 2001) Keel & drift (Landing Press, 2016) All of us (with Carina Gallegos) (Landing Press, 2018)

As editor The Curioseum: Collected Stories of the Odd and Marvellous (Te Papa Press, 2014), shortlisted for the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards 2015 More of us (Landing Press, 2019) Somewhere a Cleaner (Landing Press, 2020) More than a Roof (Landing Press, 2021)