Michalia Arathimos

Michalia Arathimos is a Greek–New Zealand writer. She has held several writers' residencies in New Zealand, and received several awards for her short stories. Her debut novel, Aukati, was published in 2017.

Michalia Arathimos
BornWellington, New Zealand
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • short story writer
EducationPhD, Victoria University of Wellington
Notable worksAukati (2017)

Life and career

Arathimos was born in Wellington.[1] Her mother is Greek and her father is a New Zealander.[2] She holds a PhD in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, supervised by Damien Wilkins and Mark Williams.[1][3] After finishing her PhD, she and her partner moved to Western Australia for a year and subsequently to Melbourne, where she worked as a book reviewer for Overland.[4] In 2016 she came second in the Landfall Essay Competition.[5]

In 2016 she won the Sunday Star-Times short story competition (open category) with her short story "The Beauty of Mrs Lim". The main character in her story was inspired by her grandmother, who immigrated to New Zealand in the 1950s.[6][7] She has twice been shortlisted for the Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize in Australia.[8] In 2017 her first novel Aukati was published by Mākaro Press.[1] It was launched at the Melbourne Writers Festival,[4] and features the relationship of a Greek woman and a Māori man and their cultural differences.[2] Sue Orr, reviewing the book for Landfall, said Aukati "is a book of and for our time and deserves to be widely read, studied and debated".[9] In the same year Arathimos was awarded a Copyright Licensing of New Zealand / New Zealand Society of Authors research grant towards a writing project about the status of Māori and other minority authors in New Zealand culture.[8]

In 2020 she received the Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award for her short story collection Apologia. The award is made to new works of short fiction by Australian writers.[10] Having lived in Melbourne for a decade, in 2020 she returned to New Zealand, where she spent six months in Wellington as the recipient of the Randell Cottage Writers' Residency. She subsequently spent four months in Auckland as the recipient of the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship.[11][12] She was the 2021 Waikato University writer-in-residence.[13][14]

References
  1. "Michalia Arathimos selected as 2020 Randell Cottage Writer". Scoop Independent News. 17 December 2019. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  2. "The cultural divisions of Greek-New Zealander Michalia Arathimos, author of "Aukati"". SBS Greek. 8 January 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  3. Arathimos, Michalia (2013). Fracture: The reception of the 'other' author in Aotearoa (Doctoral thesis). Open Access Repository Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington. doi:10.26686/wgtn.14614797.
  4. Fotakis, Nikos (18 August 2017). "Using words to change the world". Neos Kosmos. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  5. "Airini Beautrais wins 2016 Landfall Essay Competition". Victoria University of Wellington. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  6. Bamber, Shaun (19 November 2016). "Short story awards revealed: 'The art of the short story is alive and well in New Zealand'". Sunday Star-Times. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  7. Loren, Anna (1 October 2017). "Winning Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award was 'such a boost', writer says". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  8. "Four New Zealand writing projects awarded research grants". Copyright Licensing New Zealand. 25 August 2017. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  9. Orr, Sue (1 April 2018). "Breaking Ground". Landfall Review Online. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
  10. "Arathimos wins 2020 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award". Books+Publishing. 15 September 2020. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  11. "Writer Michalia Arathimos on writers' residencies". Radio New Zealand. 13 December 2020. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  12. "Magic, migrants, sex, activism and representation". Scoop Independent News. 9 December 2019. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  13. Mather, Mike (28 July 2021). "Giants of New Zealand literature to stride into Hamilton for book month events". Waikato Times. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  14. "New Writer in Residence for 2021". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. 15 January 2021. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
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