John Cranna - Writer / Director The Creative Hub
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Industry | Communications or Media |
| Occupation | Director, The Creative Hub Writing Centre |
| Location | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Introduction | My first job after leaving NZ for my OE was as a journalist and community activist in London's Kings Cross, which at the time was that city's most notorious red light district. I was there ten years. I'm now the director of The Creative Hub Writing Centre in Auckland, NZ Visit The Creative HubWe run creative writing courses all year round. I've published three books, two of fiction and one of non-fiction ... 'Visitors' is a collection of short stories, and 'Arena,' a novel. My books have been published in NZ, Australia, the UK and France. For five years I edited a magazine with a million readers, which gave me an insight into the difficulty of maintaining integrity in the face of powerful contrary forces. Writing Awards: Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book, and the NZ Book Award for Fiction. My short film 'Accidents' was shown at the Venice Film Festival and other festivals around the world. |
| Interests | Reading 'The Guardian', dancing tango, playing the flute, scuba diving the reefs of Tonga, sailing, playing squash, hiking on the Hillary Trail west of Auckland. Avoiding drug lords. |
| Favorite movies | Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Mirror', Sergei Paradjanov's 'The Colour of Pomegranates' |
| Favorite music | The Clash 'Combat Rock'. Latin jazz and tango. Anything by JS Bach, particularly played by Glenn Gould. |
| Favorite books | 'The Tin Drum' by Gunter Grass; 'A Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; 'Illywhacker' by Peter Carey; 'Lolita' by Nabokov and 'Catch 22' by Joseph Heller |