Anne Else

Anne Else (born 1945) is a New Zealand writer, researcher and editor.

Life Else was born and grew up in Auckland. She studied English at the University of Auckland, graduating with a master's degree. She initially lectured at the university before moving overseas. Much of her work is concerned with feminist social commentary, analysis and history. She has written articles, reviews and commentary for New Zealand magazines and journals, including Broadsheet, New Zealand Listener, Landfall, Women’s Studies Journal, and has also been published in scholarly journals overseas. A section of her memoir won the 2009 Pamela Tomlinson prize for creative writing. The full memoir, telling her life story told through her experiences of food, was published in 2013 as The Colour of Food. Her original study, published in 1991, was updated and reissued in 2022 (with Maria Haenga-Collins) to also cover state care, donor conception and surrogacy. She has talked about the need to update the 1955 Adoption Act, having studied its history and its impact on many New Zealanders.

Publications

As author: A Question of Adoption: Closed Stranger Adoption in New Zealand 1944-74 (Bridget Williams Books, 1991) False Economy: New Zealanders face the Conflict between Paid and Unpaid Work (Tandem Press, 1996) A Super Future? The Price of Growing Older in New Zealand (with Susan St John, Tandem Press, 1998) The Colour of Food (Awa Press, 2013) A Question of Adoption: Closed Stranger Adoption in New Zealand 1944-74 and Adoption, State Care, Doron Conception and Surrogacy 1975 - 2022 (with Maria Haenga-Collins) (Bridget Williams Books, 2022) Protecting our Future: The Case for Greater Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology (with Sandra Coney, 1999) Women Together: A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand / Ngā Rōpū Wāhine o te Motu, (Historical Branch, Dept. of Internal Affairs/Daphne Brasell Associates Press, 1993; updated and republished in 2018 on the NZHistory website).