Kerry Sunderland

Kerry Sunderland is a freelance journalist, author, literary festival curator and broadcaster.

Born in Naarm Melbourne, she is now based in Te Tauihu, where she has been the curator of the Nelson Arts Festival’s literary programme since 2018.

A freelance journalist since the late 90s, Kerry’s words have been published 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.

She is a contributor to Otherhood: Essays on being childfree, childless and child adjacent (MUP, 2024), A Liminal Gathering (Elixir & Star Press, 2023) and Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety (THWUP, 2018).

Kerry has an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington and was joint winner of the 2018 Hachette/Northern Rivers Writers Centre Mentorship for her manuscript, Beyond the Blue Door.

In 2021, she launched the radio show and podcast, Deathwalker’s Guide to Life. Over the past three years, as part of the show, she has conducted 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.

She has recently been awarded a NZSA/CLNZ Research Grant and a Michael King Writers Centre residency to write a book that expands on the podcast.

Image: Braden Fastier