Renee Liang

Renee Wen-Wei Liang (born 1973) is a New Zealand paediatrician, poet, essayist, short story writer, playwright, librettist, theatre producer and medical researcher. She has been the recipient of several awards for her services to arts, science and medicine and is also noted for her services to the Chinese New Zealand community. She lives in Auckland.

Biography Liang was born in 1973. She is a second-generation Chinese New Zealander and has two younger sisters, Rhea (a surgeon) and Roseanne (a filmmaker).

She attended St Cuthbert's College and graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1996, a Master of Creative Writing degree in 2007 and a Postgraduate Diploma of Arts (Theatre) in 2009. She also holds a specialist qualification as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

She has toured eight plays to festivals and venues nationally. Liang's play The Bone Feeder was commissioned as an opera through Carla Van Zon, and performed as an opera on 23 March 2017 at the Auckland Arts Festival. Her Interactive digital narrative work Golden Threads was created in partnership with illustrator Allan Xia as part of Auckland Museum's 2017 exhibition "Being Chinese in Aotearoa: A photographic journey".

She has also run many community writing workshops, including a programme for migrant women called New Kiwi Women Write Their Stories,

As a paediatrician, she has a special interest in child health and adolescent health and leads the Asian Advisory Group for the longitudinal project Growing Up In New Zealand. Golden Threads won the Play by Play Award for Diversity in 2017.

In 2010, Liang was the recipient of the Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader Award for her achievements in arts, science and medicine.

She received the NZ Chinese Society (Auckland Branch) Senior Achievement award in 2012

She was a recipient of the D’Arcy Writers Grant in 2018 and her resulting essay, A Kete Half Empty, was published in North & South in January 2020.

In the 2018 New Year Honours, Liang was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the arts.

Digital Golden Threads (2017)

Non-fiction When We Remember To Breathe: Mess, Magic and Mothering with Michele Powles (Magpie Pulp, 2019)

As editor New beginnings: new Kiwi women write their stories (Monster Fish Publishing, 2012) New flights: writing from Kiwi migrant women (Monster Fish Publishing, 2015)