IIML's new Director announced
Damien Wilkins will be the next Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters. His role as as Director and Professor will commence following Bill Manhire’s retirement at the end of January 2013.
Damien joined the staff of the IIML in 2003, after completing an MFA from Washington University in St Louis and working in publishing. He is the author of nine books, including the novel The Miserables, which won the New Zealand Book Award for fiction in 1994, and The Fainter which was runner-up for the Montana Medal for Fiction in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He has published stories, poems and essays. In 2005 the anthology he edited, Great Sporting Moments, won a Montana Book Award. His most recent publications as a co-editor are The Best of the Best New Zealand Poems, and The Exercise Book: Creative Writing Exercises from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters. Damien’s television scriptwriting includes work on Duggan and The Insiders Guide to Happiness. His first play, Drinking Games, was produced at Circa Theatre in 2008.
In 2008 Damien was awarded the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship. His most recent novel, Somebody Loves Us All, was written during his time in Menton, France, and published by Victoria University Press in 2009.
Read the official press release