Kerry is an Australian-born writer who moved to New Zealand in late 2012 and now calls Aotearoa home. She is based in Te Tauihu, the top of the South Island, where she has been the curator of the Nelson Arts Festival’s literary programme since 2018.
Kerry has a MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington and was joint winner of the 2018 Northern Rivers Writers’ Centre Hachette Mentorship for her unpublished manuscript, Beyond the Blue Door.
Her personal essay ‘Mother Issues’ appears in Otherhood: Essays on being childfree, childless and child adjacent (MUP, 2024), a short memoir titled ‘The Eagle’s Gift’ was published in A Liminal Gathering (Elixir & Star Press, 2023) and her personal essay, ‘Scared to Death’, was published in Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety (THWUP, 2018).
A freelance journalist since the late 90s, Kerry’s feature articles have appeared in New Zealand Geographic, NZ Listener, North & South, The Spinoff, Stuff/Nelson Mail, Wild Tomato, as well as the Byron Echo, Inside Film, and Metro Magazine in Australia.
Kerry also has broadcast experience as a film reviewer (ABC Northcoast, Australia) and radio presenter/producer (Fresh FM, Nelson, NZ).
In 2021, she launched the radio show and podcast, Deathwalker’s Guide to Life. Since then, she has conducted more than 30 in-depth conversations with her fellow travellers – including everyone from songwriters and storytellers, palliative care physicians and home-based death care practitioners, funeral celebrants and interfaith ministers, to septuagenarian climate activists and comedians.
Kerry’s residency project is a book based on her journey to become a deathwalker and her work to improve death literacy.