Twice Upon a Time

James Norcliffe is an award-winning poet and educator, as well as an author of children’s books.

Awards and Recognition:

• 2012: University of Otago College of Education’s Writer in Residence
• 2006: Fellowship at Iowa University
• 2000: Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University
• 2003: Christchurch Press Literary Liaisons Honour Award (with Bernadette Hall) for ‘lasting contribution to literature in the South Island’
• 1990: Lilian Ida Smith Award
• 1992: New Zealand Poetry Society’s international competition winner

Works and Accolades:

• The Loblolly Boy:

  • Described by Margaret Mahy as ‘a rich fantasy - alive with original twists surprises and mysteries’.
  • Published in the United States and Australia.
  • Won the 2010 NZ Post Junior Fiction Award.
  • Shortlisted for the Esther Glen Medal and the Sir Julius Vogel Science Fiction Award.
  • A 2010 Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Book.
  • Praised by Gerard Woods in Science Fiction World as ‘that rare children’s book, as much a joy for adults to read as for children’.
  • Described by USA’s Booklist as ‘an imaginative and richly atmospheric fantasy with sympathetic characters. … a haunting story that will capture most readers’ imaginations’.
  • George Ivanoff in Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus (ASFF) called it ‘an entrancing, exciting, unexpected read …. it has a wondrous, magical fairy-tale ambience’.
  • Highly recommended by Fran Knight in Read Plus as an ‘intriguing, engrossing and wholly satisfying … a highly original fantasy story’.
  • Peter Pledger in Read Plus declared it ‘A unique and original fantasy, complete with adventure, magic and appealing characters, this is a tale that was hard to put down.’

• The Loblolly Boy & the Sorcerer:

  • A finalist in the Junior Fiction category of the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

• The Enchanted Flute:

  • Published in 2012.

• The Assassin of Gleam:

  • Won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for the best New Zealand fantasy novel of 2006.
  • Shortlisted for the 2007 LIANZA Esther Glen Medal.
  • Trevor Agnew in The Christchurch Press wrote that Norcliffe avoided cliché and had ‘breathed life into his characters and situations. The result is a skilfully told story, with a dark mood and a sense of urgency. It is clear that a master storyteller is at work from the first sentence …’
  • Heather Murray in New Zealand Books identified Norcliffe’s ‘experience as historian and poet to create a logical, believable and exciting story out of an alienating and threatening world’, noting he ‘grounds his story and characters in acceptable reality through using known language’.
  • Dave Pope in Hawkes Bay Today noted it has ‘a plot within a plot within a plot. It keeps the reader wanting more’.

• Felix and the Red Rats:

  • Described as a ‘riveting adventure which sees the margins between fiction and reality, and the past and the present, dangerously blur’.

Teaching Experience:

Norcliffe has taught English in Christchurch, China, and Brunei.

Personal Life:

He lives in Church Bay with his wife, Joan Melvyn.

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