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Pip Adam

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Pip Adam
Born1970 (age 55–56)
Christchurch, New Zealand
EducationVictoria University of Wellington
OccupationsAuthor and tutor
Writing career
GenreFiction
Notable works
  • Everything We Hoped For
  • The New Animals
  • Nothing To See
  • Audition
Notable awards
Websitepipadam.com

Pip Adam (born 1970) is a novelist, short story writer, and reviewer from New Zealand. She has published one collection of short stories and five novels, including The New Animals, which won New Zealand's top fiction prize at the New Zealand Book Awards in 2018, and Audition, which won the international Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for fiction in 2026.

Early life and education

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Adam was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1970, and grew up in Auckland.[1][2] After leaving school at age 17, she worked as a hairdresser for 15 years off-and-on.[2][1] She attended the New Zealand Film and Television School in Christchurch during this time, before spending time in a rehabilitation centre to address drug and alcohol addiction issues.[1].[2][1] Adam has said she had not read any novels until she read Emma by Jane Austen at age 27.[1]

After being inspired by hearing poet Bill Manhire on the radio, Adam moved to Dunedin where she completed a bachelor of arts degree in English literature at Otago University in 2000.[1][2] In 2001, Adam moved to Wellington where she completed her master's degree in library and information studies at Victoria University of Wellington.[3] She applied three times to the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University for the master's degree programme in creative writing; she completed her master's in 2007.[2][4] Her first book, Everything We Hoped For, was completed as part of her master's degree.[1]

In 2012, Adam completed her PhD, supervised by Damien Wilkins.[5][6] Her doctoral thesis considered how the language of structural engineering can influence fiction writing, and influenced her first novel I'm Working on a Building (published in 2013).[7]

Career

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Early books

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In 2010, Adam's first book, Everything We Hoped For, was published by Victoria University Press (VUP).[2] Paula Green, in a review for The New Zealand Herald, described it as "a collection of 23 stories that reflect her devotion to the craft of writing".[8] It received the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards.[2][9] In 2012, Adam received the New Generation Award in the 2012 Macquarie Private Wealth New Zealand Arts Awards presented by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.[10]

In 2013, Adam's first novel, I'm Working on a Building, was published by VUP.[2] The narrative, about the life of an engineer working on a replica of the Burj Khalifa, is told in reverse chronological order.[11] In a review for Landfall, Tasha Haines noted the novel's connections to Adam's PhD thesis, which asked how the language of structural engineering can "inform, alter and enlarge fiction"; Adam "articulates a broad idea about humanity, time and place via a symbolic use of the built environment in its capacity as a container and scaffold for humanity".[7] Chris Reed, in a review for Read NZ Te Pou Muramura, called it a "bold and unorthodox novel" and praised its non-conventional narrative form.[12] Carl Shuker, writing in The Spinoff, lauded the book for containing "the finest piece of writing in New Zealand fiction this century".[13]

The New Animals (2017) and later novels

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Her second novel, The New Animals, was published by VUP in 2017.[2] It won New Zealand's top fiction prize, the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for 2018.[14] The judges described it as a "confrontational, revelatory novel that holds a mirror up to contemporary New Zealand culture".[2] It was published by Dorothy in the United States in 2023.[1] James Pasley in the Los Angeles Review of Books noted that the novel is not always enjoyable to read, "because Adam refuses to look away, because she forces the reader to face up to the state of things."[15] He concludes that the novel "might not be an easy read, but it is an important one", and describes Adam as "undoubtedly one of [New Zealand's] best writers".[15]

In 2020, Adam's third novel Nothing to See was published by VUP. It is a novel about young women who have split into divided selves through traumatic experiences.[16] It was shortlisted for the top prize for fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2021.[17] Charlotte Grimshaw said the novel "gives us a story of fractured lives, and at the same time delves into deeper mysteries".[16] Philip Matthews, reviewing the novel for the Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books, described it as being about "shame, loneliness, about wanting to do good and hoping for second chances — or third or fourth chances", and "finding new ways of being". He concluded that it was a "real achievement" for the book to cover all these themes as well as being "deeply affecting".[18] Briar Lawry in The Spinoff said that like Adam's other works it is "compelling" but not an easy read: "Adam is an author who manages to lull you into thinking she’s playing by the literary rules while making her own playbook".[19]

Adam's fourth novel, Audition, was published in 2023 by Te Herenga Waka University Press (formerly VUP). It was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.[20] and longlisted for the 2025 International Dublin Literary Award.[21] In 2026, Audition won the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.[22]

Adam's fifth novel, Kluge (styled lowercase as kluge),[1] was published in 2026, and explores the role of AI in modern life.[23]

Other work and publications

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Adam has been published in a number of literary journals including Overland (2015),[24] takahē (2014),[25] Fire Dials (2014),[26] Sport (2008–2014),[27] Landfall (2009, 2010), and Hue & Cry (2007–2013).[5] She was a runner up in the 2007 Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition.[5] She is a book reviewer on Jesse Mulligan's show broadcast on Radio New Zealand.[28] She also hosts the Better off Read podcast.[29] The photographer Ann Shelton used writing by Adam in her 2015 installation House Work: a project about a house.[30][31]

Adam has taught creative writing at Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University[3][32] and at Whitirea New Zealand. With the Write Where You Are collective, she taught writing at the Arohata Women's Prison;[5] she left this programme, however, due to feeling conflicted about the prison system.[1] She was appointed Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence for 2021 at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.[33]

Personal life

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Adam lives with her partner, Brent McIntyre, and their son in Wellington.[3] She identifies as queer and pansexual.[1][34]

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • I'm Working on a Building (Victoria University Press, 2013)[5]
  • The New Animals (Victoria University Press, 2017; Dorothy in 2023)[35][1]
  • Nothing to See (Victoria University Press, 2020)
  • Audition (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2023)[36]
  • Kluge, styled as kluge (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2026)[1]

Short story collection

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  • Everything We Hoped For (Victoria University Press, 2010)

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Rankin, Anna (25 August 2026). "Portrait of the artist raised on soap opera and sci-fi". Newsroom. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Pip Adam". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 "Pip Adam". The Arts Foundation. 26 September 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  4. ↑ Adam, Pip (2011). Everything we hoped for (Masters thesis). Open Access Repository Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington. doi:10.26686/wgtn.14551287.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Pip Adam". Academy of New Zealand Literature. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  6. ↑ Adam, Pip (2012). At the Service of the Unusual: Ways to Write the Built Environment (Doctoral thesis). Open Access Repository Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington. doi:10.26686/wgtn.14551299.
  7. 1 2 Haines, Tasha (1 March 2014). "Tower Complex". Landfall. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  8. ↑ Green, Paula (11 August 2010). "Book Review: Everything We Hoped For". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  9. ↑ "Best First Books". Academy of New Zealand Literature. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  10. ↑ "2012 Arts Foundation Award recipients announced". Creative New Zealand. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  11. ↑ Jungersen-Smith, Justine (24 July 2023). "A brief history of Pip Adam". Newsroom. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
  12. ↑ Reed, Chris. "I'm Working on a Building". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  13. ↑ Shuker, Carl (17 August 2017). "On the blind, mulish idiocy of reviewers and the genius of Pip Adam". The Spinoff. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  14. ↑ "Wellingtonian Pip Adam wins Ockham New Zealand Book Award for The New Animals". Stuff. 15 May 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  15. 1 2 Pasley, James (5 November 2023). "All the Waste in the World: On Pip Adam's "The New Animals"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  16. 1 2 Grimshaw, Charlotte (10 June 2020). "Book of the Week: Charlotte Grimshaw reviews Pip Adam". Newsroom. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  17. ↑ "Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2021 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 3 March 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  18. ↑ Matthews, Philip (12 June 2020). "Nothing to See by Pip Adam". Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  19. ↑ Lawry, Briar (30 June 2020). "On the gobsmackingness of Pip Adam and Nothing to See". The Spinoff. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  20. ↑ "Ockham 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 6 March 2024. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
  21. ↑ IGO (14 January 2025). "Audition". Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
  22. ↑ "The 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction". Ursula K. Le Guin. 21 October 2026. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
  23. ↑ Bird, Hera Lindsay (15 August 2026). "'A creature not a tool': Pip Adam's new novel shoots for the heart of AI". The Spinoff. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  24. ↑ "Pip Adam". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  25. ↑ "takahē 81 – April 2014". takahē magazine. 3 December 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  26. ↑ "Five Dials #32" (PDF). Five Dials. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  27. ↑ "Pip Adam". Sport. 28 February 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  28. ↑ "Book critic Pip Adam". Radio New Zealand. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  29. ↑ "Better off Read". Better off Read. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  30. ↑ "house work". Ann Shelton. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  31. ↑ "House Work". Enjoy Gallery. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  32. ↑ "Pip Adam – Senior Tutor". Massey University. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  33. ↑ "Pip Adam to be writer in residence at VUW in 2021". Stuff. 23 October 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  34. ↑ "Pip Adam". Out on the Shelves. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  35. ↑ Adam, Pip (2017). The New Animals. Victoria University Press. ISBN 9781776561162.
  36. ↑ Harmon, Steph; Cain, Sian; Wyndham, Susan; Fry, Declan; Touma, Rafqa; Lam, Yvonne C (5 July 2023). "'Exciting', 'bold', 'laugh out loud': the best Australian books out in July". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
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