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Tracey Slaughter

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Tracey Slaughter is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer from Aotearoa New Zealand. Her work has received numerous international awards, including the ABR Calibre Essay Prize 2024, The Moth Short Story Award 2024, the Manchester Poetry Prize 2023, the Fish Short Story Prize 2020, the Landfall Essay Prize 2015, the Bridport Short Story Prize 2014, and two Katherine Mansfield Awards in 2004 and 2001. In 2025 she came second in the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize; in 2020 she was runner-up in the Bath Novella Prize; in 2018 she was second in The Moth Short Story Award, second in the ABR Peter Porter Poetry Prize, a finalist in the MsLexia Short Story Prize, and in 2015 she was shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction Prize.

Tracey's essay "notes on crutches" will be published in her forthcoming collection the human dress, due for publication in February 2027 by Te Herenga Waka Press. Her other publications include the poetry collection The Girls in the Red House are Singing (Te Herenga Waka, 2024), the short story collection Devil's Trumpet (Te Herenga Waka, 2021), the novella if there is no shelter (Ad Hoc UK, 2020), the poetry collection Conventional Weapons (Te Herenga Waka, 2019), the short fiction collection deleted scenes for lovers (Te Herenga Waka, 2016), the novella The Longest Drink in Town (Pania Press, 2015) and the poetry/fiction collection her body rises (Random House, 2005).

Tracey is currently working on a novel/autofiction and another volume of short stories, and collaborating with Liam Hinton on a feature-length screen adaptation of The Longest Drink in Town. Tracey also acts, and recently performed in a production of Liam Hinton's Passionfruits, winner of the 2026 Adam NZ Play Award for best play. She has also collaborated with poet Nida Fiazi for the libretto du'a for broken shelter, an opera composed by Michael Williams and set to be performed in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2027. Tracey is the editor of Poetry Aotearoa, the country's longest-running poetry journal, and teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato.

Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Slaughter