Tracy Farr
Tracy will explore the legacy of a woman scientist in mid-twentieth century Aotearoa, as a lens on connectivity, continuity, creativity and climate breakdown.
Commenced 2026
Tracy Farr is a novelist, short story writer, and former research scientist. Her third and most recent novel, Wonderland, won the 2024 NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize and was longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her debut novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, was listed for prizes in Australia including the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award (longlist) and, along with her second novel, The Hope Fault, was published internationally. Wonderland and The Hope Fault were named among NZ Listener's 100 Best Books (of 2025 and 2017 respectively).
Tracy's first novel and several short stories have been adapted and broadcast by RNZ, and her second novel was adapted for the stage, premiering in Australia in 2019. Her short fiction has been recognised for awards (winning the 2014 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award; shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing; Runner-Up Award in the 2001 BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards), and been published in anthologies (including Best New Zealand Fiction Volumes 1 and 3, edited by Fiona Kidman), literary journals (including Sport and Turbine | Kapohau), newspapers and magazines (including NZ Listener).
Tracy has been awarded grants, residencies and fellowships in Aotearoa and Australia, including Michael King Writers Centre Established Writer in Residence (2018, 2021), Varuna Residential Fellowships (2015, 2019) and Bundanon Artist in Residence (2019). She has been an invited guest at festivals in Australia and Aotearoa, and has taught writing workshops for adults and children. She curates Bad Diaries Salon – a live literary series that features writers reading, to a theme, from their diaries and unpublished notebooks – and its sister project, Bad Diaries Podcast. She's also an author on more than thirty peer-reviewed biological science publications, and a number of identification and field guides for a wider audience.
Born in Naarm Melbourne, Tracy grew up in Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar Perth, graduating with degrees in Science and Arts from University of Western Australia. She lived and worked for five years in Canada before moving to Te Whanganui-a-Tara in 1996.
For the creative component of her thesis, Tracy will write a novel with the working title Holdfast, set in the recent past and the near future. The novel will combine discontinuous narratives – discontinuous in time, place, viewpoint, narrative voice – to form a coherent, original whole. The central character who connects the various narrative strands will be inspired by Betty Batham, a scientist who – in real life – disappeared from Seatoun beach in Wellington in the winter of 1974.
For her critical component, Tracy will write a biographical monograph of New Zealand scientist Dr Elizabeth (Betty) Batham FRSNZ (1917—1974), drawing on primary sources. While focussing on Batham's career in science and its important legacy, she'll also examine the everyday differences, gaps, absences and barriers experienced by Batham as a woman working in science in Aotearoa through the mid-twentieth century.
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