Philip Temple is the award-winning author of ten novels and more than thirty non-fiction books for both adults and children. He has written extensively for television, contributed to countless magazines and journals, and been an editor for the NZ Listener and Landfall. In 2007, his examined work earned him the higher degree of Doctor of Literature from the University of Otago. Philip was the recipient of the 2003 Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers' Residency and, earlier, held the Menton Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Robert Burns Fellowship and the National Library Fellowship. He received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2005 and has been appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services to literature. He lives in Dunedin with his wife, poet Diane Brown.