Kate De Goldi

Kate De Goldi is a full-time writer who grew up in Christchurch and now lives in Wellington. Her first book was for adults: called like you, really, it was published under the name Kate Flannery, and gave a series of interlinked short stories about the women in a Catholic family. Since then she has won numerous awards and accolades for her fiction, including the American Express and Katherine Mansfield Awards for short stories, and the overall Children’s Book Award in 1997 for her young adult novel Sanctuary.

In 2000, her novel about adoption, Closed, Stranger won an Honour Award in the New Zealand Post Children and Young Adults' Book Awards, and in 2001, Kate was made an Arts Foundation Laureate. Her book Clubs, illustrated by Jacqui Colley, won the picture book category of the New Zealand Post Children’s and Young Adult Awards in 2005; that year it also won the overall book of the year, and it also gained the Russell Clark Award at the LIANZA Book Awards.

Kate’s most recent novel, The 10PM Question (2008), won Book of the Year and Best Young Adult fiction at the 2009 New Zealand Post Children and Young Adults' Book Awards. It was also runner-up in the Fiction category at the Montana NZ Book Awards 2009, at which it won the Readers' Choice Award. It was a finalist in the LIANZA Children's Book Awards for the Esther Glen Award, and was shortlisted for the Nielson BookData NZ Booksellers' Choice Award.

The 10PM Question has been selected to appear in the prestigious international publication The White Ravens 2009 and with sales of over 14,000 copies the book now wears a Silver Premier NZ Bestseller sticker and remains at No. 1 on the NZ Bestsellers List (week ending 22 August 2009). The rights have been sold to Allen & Unwin Publishers in Australia, and Dutch and German rights have also been sold. It is due to be published in North America later this year.

Kate is also very well known as an astute and energetic book reviewer for radio and television.