Cathie Dunsford

Cathie Koa Dunsford (born 1953) is a New Zealand novelist, poet, anthologist, lecturer and publishing consultant. She has edited several anthologies of feminist, lesbian and Māori/Pasifika writing, including in 1986 the first anthology of new women's writing in New Zealand. She is also known for her novel Cowrie and later novels in the same series. Her work is influenced by her identity as a lesbian woman with Māori and Hawaiian heritage.

Early life and career Dunsford was born in Devonport, Auckland, in 1953. She is of Māori descent through the iwi (tribe) of Te Rarawa, as well as Hawaiian and Pākehā (New Zealand European) descent. She attended Westlake Girls High School. She has an MA and a PhD in English literature (obtained in 1983) from the University of Auckland.

Dunsford was an English lecturer at the University of Auckland, teaching literature, creative writing and publishing, from 1975. From 1983 to 1986 she taught New Zealand literature, lesbian literature and women's studies at the University of California, Berkeley as a Fulbright scholar. In 1998, writing for the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Janet Wilson noted "Dunsford's stable of lesbian, heterosexual, established and new writers ... makes her probably the most enterprising and eclectic independent publisher of women's fiction". Writers she had published at that time included Shonagh Koea, Marewa Glover, Keri Hulme, Lauris Edmond and Fiona Kidman.

In 2007, conferences on Dunsford's work were held at the Queen's University at Kingston and the University of Manitoba; a connected book was published in the same year, titled Talkstory: The Art of Listening: Indigenous Poetics and Politics in Cathie Dunsford's Books. She has a strong interest in environmentalism, a common theme in her works, and was the keynote speaker at the 2010 Oceanic Conference on Creativity and Climate Change in Suva, Fiji. In 2012, she appeared at the Berlin International Literature Festival and the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Selected works Novels Cowrie (1994) Kia Kaha (1998) The Journey Home (1997) Manawa Toa: Heart Warrior (2000) Song of the Selkies (2001) Ao Toa: Earth Warriors (2004) Pele's Tsunami (2010) Kaitiakitanga Pasifika (2012) Occupy Omaha (2014)

Non-fiction Getting Published – The Inside Story (2003)

Anthologies New Women's Fiction (1986) The Exploding Frangipani: lesbian writing from Australia and New Zealand (1990), co-edited with Susan Hawthorne Subversive Acts (1991) Me and Marilyn Monroe (1993) Car Maintenance, Explosives and Love (1998), co-edited with Susan Hawthorne and Susan Sayer Other Lesbian Writing (1997) Vaka Moana: Pacific Writing (2007)