Vivienne Plumb

Vivienne Christiana Gracia Plumb is a New Zealand poet, playwright, fiction writer, and editor.

Biography

Plumb is of both New Zealand and Australian heritage. Born in Sydney, Australia, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and a Master of Arts in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She has earned a Doctor of Creative Arts degree from the University of Wollongong, Australia. Her 2012 doctoral thesis, titled Hitchhiking: the travelling female body, was in two parts: a collection of short fiction, The Glove Box and Other Stories; and an accompanying exegesis.
Plumb originally trained in acting and performance at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. After being accepted into Bill Manhire's Original Composition course in 1990 at Victoria University of Wellington, she began writing. In 1993, Plumb and several other women playwrights formed WOPPA (Women's Professional Playwrights Association) and established The Women's Play Press.
She currently resides in Wellington, New Zealand.

Plumb has received numerous awards for her fiction, poetry, and drama.

1993 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, Love Knots
1994 JD Stout Fellowship, Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington
1994 Best First Book, The Hubert Church Award for Prose, The Wife Who Spoke Japanese in Her Sleep
1998 First Place, New Zealand Poetry Society Annual Competition, The Tank
2000 Second place, New Zealand Listener National Poetry Competition, The Vegan Bar and Gaming Lounge
2001 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship
2004 Creative New Zealand, University of Iowa Writer's Residency, USA
2005 Varuna Retreat Fellowship, Australia
2005 Bronwyn Tate Memorial Award
2006 Writer-in-Residence, Massey University
2006 Writer-in-Residence, Hong Kong Baptist University
2009 Doctorate of Creative Arts scholarship, University of Wollongong
2012 Randell Cottage Creative New Zealand Writer-in-Residence
2014 Ursula Bethell Writer-in-Residence, University of Canterbury