David Parkyn was born in Dunedin and grew up in Lower Hutt and Wellington. He studied politics and comparative religion at Victoria and Canterbury universities before traveling through Central and South America, hitchhiking across Canada and the USA and mixing in the counterculture. These early experiences are evident in Something Else. He has published two collections of poetry: Children of the Storm (with illustrations by Phillip Clairmont, Sally Griffin and Alan Taylor) and Colonial Landscape. He is writing a new novel.

Readers response to ‘Something Else’

One reason the book is remarkable is the language. It is classical but manages to describe hip better than hip. A good time to do a recall. Jacqueline Fahey

The most remarkable feature of this book is the use of language which does not comment or explain but allows the the tale to emerge through dialogue and images. To find other writers as practised as Parkyn, I find myself thinking of E. Annie Proulx : rich in local vocabulary and details, say of the craft of boat- building or the effects of weather on mood… from driving in the fog at night on a dirt track or a glorious day seated in a puriri grove, to sitting on couches over lacquered doors and speculating on the commercial sense of towing an iceberg, you recognise it all. Barbara Strathdee