Claire is a Rotorua writer whose first novel Dice was published in 2023 by Allen & Unwin (Aus/NZ). Dice, a literary courtroom drama, drew on Claire’s research into juror narratives in sexual violence trials. Dice was part of her PhD thesis, from the International Institute of Modern Letters, which was awarded inclusion in the Doctoral Dean’s List 2021. Dice won the Best First Novel Ngaio Marsh Award in 2024 and was finalist in those awards for Best Crime Novel, in the Australian Ned Kelly Awards, and for the Booksellers Award.
Claire completed her second novel manuscript with the assistance of a Creative NZ Grant. Omission asks how culpable we should be for actions we fail to take. Claire’s interest in interrogating legal issues and the court system through fiction is also at the heart of her MKWC project. She will be working on the first draft of a new novel about a fictional woman High Court Judge.
Claire was a law academic at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University, an interviewer and researcher on the Trans-Tasman Jury Study, and is currently a member of the Judgment Writing Faculty for Te Kura Kaiwhakawā/Institute of Judicial Studies. Her fiction has been published in Landfall, Sport, Turbine/Kapohau and Takahē and read on RNZ. Her legal writing is available in law journals here and in Australia.