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Kay McKenzie Cooke was born in Tuatapere, Western Southland, New Zealand and is of Ngati Kahungunu, Kati Mamoe, Scottish (Highland and Border), English (Northern and Cockney) and Irish descent. She spent her formative years in the small, seaside town of Orepuki, located on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Here she was introduced to wild weather and the craft of writing; her mother encouraging her from an early age to write a weekly poem or short story for the children’s pages of the ‘Southland Times’.

While at High School, Kay continued to write, and had one of her poems published in the Gore High school magazine.  In the early 1970′s she left her Southland home to attend Dunedin Teacher’s College where she continued to write, discovering that poetry was the form that most easily suited her style and expression.  Some of her poetry was published in the Teacher’s College magazine ‘Te Rama’.

From here life took Kay into a teaching career, marriage, travel and family. Apart from diaries and journals, writing took a back seat until the mid-1980′s. At this time she attended several evening writing classes and summer writing schools run by the late Charles Croot.. Kay focussed mainly on poetry and her poetry began to be published in literary magazines.

Attending a poetry workshop paper run by Dr, John Dolan at Otago University in 1997, proved a turning point for her. In 2002, her first collection, ‘Feeding the Dogs’ was published by Otago University Press and won the Jessie McKay prize for the Best First Book of Poetry, awarded at the NZ Book Awards, 2003. Her second collection, ‘Made for Weather’ was published by Otago University Press in 2007.

She works part-time as an Early Childhood educator and uses any spare time to write. She is currently working on a third poetry book with the title, ‘Born to a Red-headed Woman’. Among other things, this new collection aims to work with interweaving the themes of time and music.

She is also writing prose (as well as poetry) that is inspired by her family tree and ancestry.

Kay lives in Dunedin and is married to Robert. Their family is grown and they are now grandparents.

GO  HERE TO VISIT Kay’s BLOG