Breadcrumbs

University of Waikato announces Diana Clarke as 2022 Writer in Residence

27 January 2022

Diana Clarke

A novel exploring the cult-like logic of internet communities alongside organised religious groups such as Gloriavale and Scientology will be the focus of University of Waikato’s new Writer In Residence, Diana Clarke.

Clarke, who has been completing her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Utah, has returned home to New Zealand for the 12-month residency, jointly funded by the University and Creative New Zealand.

She says the impetus for her new book, Gleeville, has been driven by “the embarrassing amount of time” she has spent on her phone during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The internet is a petri dish for misinformation, and social media platforms allow for the amplification and dissemination of misinformed voices,” says Clarke.

“The pandemic’s arrival really heightened this trend, and now the internet looks like a bunch of little cults, not unlike physical world cults, with online communities operating as echo chambers at war with other echo chambers.”

Gleeville will be Clarke’s third book.

While she has been writing, studying, and teaching in America, Clarke has also devoted time to running informal writing workshops at a handful of anorexia recovery facilities around the United States. The relationship started when a facility manager called to say they wanted to stock her first book, Thin Girls (Harper Collins).

Clarke, who experienced an eating disorder in her early 20s, drew on her own experiences for the novel that explores body image and queerness as well as toxic diet culture and the power of sisterhood, love, and lifelong friendships.

“I was quite dumbfounded when the centre called. The idea that the people I was thinking about when I wrote that book were now reading it.”

The writing workshops at the facility saw her help patients write about their experience or a letter to themselves or their family.

“I was in and out of anorexia recovery for about 18 months when I was in my early 20s and I started writing around that time too. I don’t want to say writing cured me, because it definitely did not, but having something to channel yourself into, having something that makes you feel productive, I think that did contribute to my recovery,” says Clarke.

The Hop

Clarke’s second novel, The Hop (Harper Collins), will be published in June and tells the story of how a poor girl coming of age in rural New Zealand grows to be a sex icon, the face of a movement, and a mother, all at the same time.

Clarke says she spent a lot of time talking to sex workers in both New Zealand and America as part of her research for that story.

She expects Gleeville to be very different from her two previous works.

“The book is about cults at the thematic level, but it’s also a family drama. It’s about a millennial woman struggling with financial instability, becoming a nanny, and falling in love with a married man,” says Clarke.

Or at least that’s what the story is about right now, says Clarke.

She says the residency at Waikato would not only provide the luxury to focus on her novel for a year, it would also provide the opportunity to immerse herself in the New Zealand literary community.

“I feel really lucky to have the residency at Waikato because I’ve always been a part-time writer, fitting my writing in around study and teaching. To have a full year to focus on nothing but writing is any writer’s dream,” says Clarke.

Associate Professor of English, Dr Sarah Shieff, says the University is excited to have Clarke in the position, ensuring that the cultural life in Te Kura Toi the School of Arts, and the wider University, is rich and vibrant.

Clarke’s residency will overlap with Michalia Arathimos, the Writer in Residence for 2021, who will be on campus until the end of March.


Latest stories

Related stories

Bouncing unborn baby research between time zones secret to success

Bouncing work back and forth between time zones has allowed research into fetal development to…

A group of people stand outside the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts at the 50th anniversary celebrations for the School of Psychology postgraduate clinical and behavioural psychology diplomas.

Saving lives: Psychology programmes celebrate 50 years

More than 85 people gathered to celebrate the University of Waikato’s School of Psychology on…

Waikato alumnus awarded prestigious University Medal.

The University of Waikato has awarded its prestigious University of Waikato Medal to alumnus Rob…

Award-winning soprano and Waikato alumna is branching out into the world

With one of her recent achievements on home soil having been the runner up at…

Dr Tracey Slaughter is a senior lecturer at the University of Waikato

Feeling the burn: poetry for our times

Award-winning poet and University of Waikato senior lecturer Dr Tracey Slaughter has spent the last…

Should Artificial Intelligence make us reconceive what it means to be human?

Generative AIs are producing journalism, writing poems, and telling jokes. Sure, the op-eds, poetry, and…

Scholarship recipient

Ashleigh Ngow receives Dr Andrew Smith Medal for Academic Excellence

Protecting the environment has always been important to Maketū-raised Ashleigh Ngow who completed the Bachelor…

Anthony Byrt

Anthony Byrt appointed University of Waikato’s 2023 Writer In Residence

The art critic and writer will spend the next 12 months working on three major…

The AIs are coming: Will ChatGPT create a future of bullsh*t (jobs)?

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek is reportedly sanguine about the advent of deep learning AIs…

Madeleine Pierard

Inaugural recipients selected for Te Pae Kōkako

Six promising opera students have been selected for the University of Waikato’s immersive Master of…

Farewell to change maker, Dr David Nielson

The University of Waikato is mourning the passing of Dr David Neilson, a member of…

Art for Art’s Sake - and for the district of Waipā

University of Waikato Head of School, Te Kura Toi (School of Arts) Professor Gareth Schott…