Duncan Mackay

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mackay, Duncan (1963 –) is an historian and children's writer. He was born in Kenya and lived in Somalia and Scotland before moving to New Zealand in 1974 and adopting Whangarei as his home town. After schooling at Whangarei Boys High School he completed his BA and MA Honours degrees from Auckland University, where he studied political science and history. He holds a post-graduate diploma in journalism from Canterbury University.

Mackay has worked as a journalist with Radio New Zealand, and came to writing through his work as an historical researcher. His first book, Working the Kauri: A Photographic and Social History of New Zealands Pioneer Kauri Bushmen (1991), looks at a formative and fascinating aspect of New Zealand's early colonial history. His second volume is the more general Frontier New Zealand: the Search for Eldorado 1800 - 1920 (1997).

Mackay's first title for young adults, Money to Burn (1997), is narrated by its young protagonist, a badly-burned teenager giving evidence from his hospital bed of traumatic events he would rather forget.

In 1997 Duncan Mackay was awarded a project grant by Creative New Zealand to complete a second novel for young adults, due for publication in 2000.