David Hill (author)


Clive David Hill is a New Zealand author, especially well known for his young adult fiction. His young fiction books See Ya, Simon and Right Where It Hurts have been shortlisted for numerous awards. He is also a prolific journalist, writing many articles for The New Zealand Herald.

Biography

Hill was born in 1942 in Napier. He gained an MA from Victoria University of Wellington in 1964 and taught English in secondary schools in New Zealand and England before becoming a full-time writer in 1982.
His work includes fiction, plays and reviews and articles in newspapers, journals and magazines, both in New Zealand and overseas. His books for young people range from picture books to books for young adults. His novels have been published around the world and translated into various languages and his work has also been broadcast on the radio. He visits schools as part of the Writers in Schools programme and is one of the presenters on the Coursera online course Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest. He enjoys writing for teenagers because he sees them as an exciting and challenging audience to write for: sophisticated readers, who are at a stage where they are coming across many new ideas and experiences in their lives for the first time.
He cites Maurice Gee as his favourite author, and Joy Cowley and Margaret Mahy as his favourite children's authors.
Hill currently lives in New Plymouth.

Awards and prizes

Hill was the Robert Lord Writer in Residence in Dunedin from June to August 2003. In 2010, he participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He was Artist-in-Residence in Palmerston North in 2016. He is also a frequent speaker at literary festivals and took part in the Auckland Writers Festival Schools Programme in 2017.
Hill was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2004 New Year Honours, for services to literature.
In 2005 Hill became the 15th recipient of the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal and Lecture Award.
Many of Hill's books have won or been shortlisted for awards and named as Storylines Notable Books. See Ya Simon won the 1994 Times Educational Supplement Award for Special Needs and was awarded the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-loved Book in 2002. In 2013 My Brother's War won the Junior Fiction Award at the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards, and also the children's choice award in that category.
In 2021, Hill received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.
In the 2024 New Year Honours, Hill was promoted to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature, particularly children’s literature.

Books

  • The Seventies
  • Introducing Maurice Gee
  • On Poetry: Twelve Studies of Work by New Zealand Poets
  • Ours But to Do
  • Taranaki
  • The Boy
  • A Time to Laugh
  • The Games of Nanny Miro
  • See Ya, Simon
  • A Day at a Time
  • Curtain Up
  • Kick Back
  • Take It Easy
  • The Winning Touch
  • Second Best
  • Fat, Four-eyed and Useless
  • Just Looking, Thanks
  • Boots 'n' All
  • Right Where It Hurts
  • The High Wind Blows
  • The Sleeper Wakes
  • The Name of the Game
  • Where All Things End
  • My Story: Journey to Tangiwai, The Diary of Peter Cotterill, Napier 1953
  • No Big Deal
  • No Safe Harbour
  • Coming Back
  • Bodies and Soul
  • Running Hot
  • Aim High
  • Hill Sides
  • How I met myself, Cambridge University Press,
  • Black Day
  • The Forgotten Children
  • Duet
  • My Brother's War
  • The Red Poppy
  • Sinking
  • The Deadly Sky
  • First to the Top: Sir Edmund Hillary’s Amazing Everest Adventure
  • Enemy Camp
  • Speed King
  • Flight Path
  • Sky High: Jean Batten's Incredible Flying Adventures
  • Taking the Lead: How Jacinda Ardern Wowed the World
  • ''Below''