Catherine Robertson

Catherine Robertson is a New Zealand novelist, reviewer and broadcaster.

Life Catherine Robertson was born in Wellington in 1966. She grew up there and later lived in San Francisco and the United Kingdom. and has worked as a magazine feature writer, advertising copywriter and business consultancy owner.

In 2015 she completed a MA in creative writing at the IIML under supervisor Emily Perkins. Her books have been number one best sellers in New Zealand.

She reviews contemporary fiction for the NZ Listener, Booknotes Unbound and New Zealand Books

She has been invited to appear as speaker, panellist and/or chair at numerous literary festivals, including the New Zealand Book Council True Stories Told Live (2012), the IIML Writers on Monday series (2015), and, in 2018, the Auckland Writers Festival, Writers and Readers Week at the New Zealand Festival, WORD Christchurch, the NZSA National Writers Forum, the Hawke's Bay Arts Festival and LitCrawl Wellington, when she took part in a special live edition of RNZ's Short Story Club, hosted by Jesse Mulligan. She has served as Chair of the New Zealand Society of Authors Wellington branch

She hosted the Book Council podcast Talking Books in 2015.

With Paula Morris, she co-authored a 2016 Book Council report into reader attitudes and why New Zealand adults weren't reading New Zealand fiction.

She is married with two adult sons, one of whom, Callum, is also a writer. She was co-owner of Good Books bookshop in Wellington, which closed in early 2024. She divides her time between Wellington and Hawke's Bay.

Honours and awards The Hiding Places won the Nelson Public Libraries Award for New Zealand Fiction (2015).

Robertson was Creative New Zealand/International Institute of Modern Letters Writer in Residence (2020).