Elspeth Sandys

Author | Playwright | Scriptwriter

Represented by:
Sophie Gorell Barnes

Website for Elspeth Sandys

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Novelist and playwright, Elspeth Sandys, divides her time between New Zealand and the UK. She has published nine novels, two memoirs and two collections of short stories, and written numerous plays and adaptations for BBC Radio and Radio NZ. Her novel, River Lines, was longlisted for the Orange prize in 1996.

Elspeth’s, VAGABONDS (formerly known as Masquerade), was selected for the 20th London International Playwriting Festival in 2005, and shortlisted the following year in the Columbus State Theatre Playwriting Competition. In 2003 her short story collection, Standing in Line, was awarded the Elena Garro prize in Mexico. Sandys received the ONZM for services to literature in 2006.

 

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TV credits

IN A SUMMER SEASON

A three-part series commissioned by the BBC, 1986

UTOPIA

Pilot script for a series commissioned by Channel Four. (UK) 1988

THE MAGNIFICENT MASQUERADE

A three-part series commissioned by Anson Grieve. NZ, 1995

WHEN BLACKBIRDS SING WAR

A four-part series for television based on the Langton Quartet by Martin Boyd, commissioned September 2000 by Passionfruit Productions, Sydney

Currently with Stewart-Wall Entertainment, Australia (2016)

POETRY:

Poems published in Landfall (NZ), Listener (NZ), NZ Books, PEN (UK) and in various anthologies

CRITICISM:

Articles for Folio magazine, and introductions to the Folio editions of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and the Works of Benjamin Constant

FESTIVALS AND LITERARY TOURS:

Words on Wheels Tour 1994

Wordstruck Festival, Dunedin, 1995

Going West Festivals 1997, 1998, 2000

Guest at Sydney International Writers’ Festival May/June 2002

Judge in the Tasmania-Pacific Fiction Prize. 2004-5

Appearances at the Dunedin, Nelson, Going West and Auckland Literary Festivals May 2015

GRANTS AND AWARDS:

Joint winner of Frank Sargeson Award, 1992

NZ Arts Council Grant of $9000, 1991

Burns Fellow at Otago University, 1995

Finalist (River Lines) in The Orange Prize, (UK) April 1996

Creative New Zealand Grant of $9000, October 1996

Waikato University Writer-in-Residence 1998

Creative New Zealand Grant of $9000, June 2000

Winner of Tall Poppy Theatre Company (NZ) competition for a two-hander stage play (Three Degrees), November 2003

Winner of the Elena Garro PEN International Award for an unpublished short story collection (Standing in Line), November 2003

Awarded Writer’s Residency in Tasmania, July-August 2004

Awarded Sarah Hosking Arts Trust Residency in the UK for 2005-2006

Creative NZ grant of $18,000 to write a novel on George Bernard Shaw and the early years at the Court Theatre, London, Feb 2005

Midland Arts Council grant (UK) of £4,600 towards the same project, August 2005

Awarded ONZM (Officer of the Order of New Zealand) for Services to Literature in Queen’s New Year Honours, Jan 2006

Awarded a grant of £6000 pa for three years by the Royal Literary Society, UK, April 2007

Awarded University of Otago Wallace Residency in Auckland , March-May 2012

Winner of 2012 RNZ Media awards for The Cave of Winds

Awarded Michael King Writers Residency, Autumn 2016