What I’m Reading Lee Murray

The theme of otherness has been central to my work recently, so it’s hardly surprising that my reading reflects that, beginning with A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand edited by Paula Morris and Alison Wong. I was thrilled to see my writing mentees Shriya Bhagwat, Emma Shi and Xiaole Zhan appear in this collection alongside some stunning new voices, and I loved revisiting Eva Wong Ng’s short story Kwong Tao Uncle, since my own dog-eared copy of her collection Shadow Man was inadvertently lost in a series of house moves.

I’m re-reading Dispossessed by Tauranga’s Piper Mejia. A fictional exploration of the otherness experienced by youth, Mejia turns her teen characters into taniwha.

Still on monsters, I’m reading Gutterbreed by Kiwi Marty Young.

Bleak and confronting, this gritty urban horror has a lyrical beauty to it, with Young’s bi-polar female sleuth adding appeal.

Finally, I’m devouring Red Widow, a horror-thriller by my Black Cranes colleague, Alma Katsu, a former intelligence veteran and author of The Hunger. You’re always in for a great read with Katsu, with the pacing superbly controlled and the suspense palpable.

One of New Zealand’s most prolific and accoladed authors of horror, supernatural and speculative fiction, Lee Murray was recently awarded two internationally renowned Bram Stoker Awards for her collection Grotesque: Monster Things and, with Geneve Flynn, the anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women. She lives in the Bay of Plenty.