Anthony Lapwood

Born in Auckland in 1983, Anthony Lapwood (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Whakaue, Pākehā) spent his childhood in Tauranga, attending Welcome Bay School, Tauranga Intermediate School and then Tauranga Boys’ College.

In 2002, he moved to Wellington. Initially studying towards a Bachelor of Design in Graphic Design at Massey University, he transitioned to a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Film at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, graduating in 2011. He then undertook a Master of Arts in Creative Writing through the International Institute of Modern Letters, and graduated with Distinction in 2018. Lapwood has produced an array of short fiction, beginning in 2017 with his piece ‘Jobs for Dreamers’, in Turbine | Kapohau. Between 2017 and 2023, he has had over a dozen stories published, from ‘Jack’ on Radio NZ in 2018, to ‘Wild Horses’ in The London Reader in 2020.

Home Theatre, Lapwood’s debut story collection, was the winner of the Hubert Church Prize for Fiction at the 2023 Ockham NZ Book Awards, as well as a finalist in the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Awards.

Lapwood is also an active member of NZ’s literary community, featuring on various literary event panels, including Verb Festival, the Samesame but Different Festival, and the Auckland Writers Festival. He has been invited to speak with university classes on writing craft and pathways to publication, and has been a post-graduate creative writing thesis examiner.

Praised for his ingenuity, inventiveness and impressive “genre-mashing”, Lapwood has received widely positive reviews, with Nicholas Reid calling him “one of our best storytellers”.