Peter Wells (writer) explained

Peter Wells
Birth Name:Peter Northe Wells
Birth Date:1950 2, df=yes
Death Place:Auckland, New Zealand
Nationality:New Zealander
Awards:Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit

Peter Northe Wells (8 February 1950 – 18 February 2019) was a New Zealand writer, filmmaker, and historian.[1] He was mainly known for his fiction, but also explored his interest in gay and historical themes in a number of expressive drama and documentary films from the 1980s onwards.

Career

Film

Wells's first feature film was Desperate Remedies (1993), co-directed with Stewart Main.[2] This take on New Zealand's colonial beginnings was selected to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, and represented an expressionistic alternative to the "man alone" machismo that dominated New Zealand film in the 1970s and 80s.[3] [4]

Writing

In the years that followed, Wells concentrated on developing his writing career. His short stories and novels have been widely praised. In 1996 he collaborated with theatre director Colin McColl on an operatic dramatization of Katherine Mansfield's Wellington stories, commissioned for the NZ International Festival of the Arts. Two short stories from his 1991 collection Dangerous Desires have been filmed to date: Of Memory & Desire, the tale of a Japanese couple travelling around New Zealand, was adapted by Niki Caro as her first feature film in 1997. The same year, working from a Wells script, Stewart Main directed 1960s coming of age story One of THEM! as an hour-long short.[5]

In 1998, with Stephanie Johnson, he founded the Auckland Writers Festival, and in 2016 he founded a festival to promote LGBTQI writers called same same but different (ssbd) which includes an annual prize The Peter Wells Writing Award.[6]

Honours and awards

Wells's 2003 novel Iridescence was a runner-up in the fiction category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and a finalist in the 2005 Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize.[7] In the 2006 New Year Honours, Wells was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature and film.[8] He was awarded the Michael King Fellowship in 2011.

In 2009 Wells was awarded a New Zealand non-fiction literary prize, convened by CLL (Copyright Licensing Ltd) to write a series of biographical essays on William Colenso, entitled The Hungry Heart. The book was anticipated to "not be a conventional biography, but an essay series that bears directly on the episodes of heartbreak, loneliness, and sometimes horror that chequered the life of this gifted renaissance man – printer, writer, botanist, explorer, ex-missionary and intellectual maverick". The book was published in 2011. Journalist Geoffrey Vine, reviewing the book for the Otago Daily Times, wrote that it had "set a new standard in the writing of New Zealand history and Wells deserves every accolade".[9]

Personal life

Wells, who was gay, was married to the writer Douglas Lloyd Jenkins.[10] [11] Wells died from prostate cancer at Mercy Hospice in Auckland on 18 February 2019.[12]

Works

Bibliography

Filmography and videography

Installations

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Herkt . David . No more secrets: Peter Wells opens up about his sexuality and his uncertain future . Stuff . 9 March 2018 . 19 February 2019.
  2. Web site: 5. – Feature film – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Taonga. New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. teara.govt.nz. 18 February 2019.
  3. Web site: A Perspective on Desperate Remedies. King. Richard. 5 November 2008. www.nzonscreen.com. 18 February 2019.
  4. Web site: A Remedy for History. Wong. Tim. 25 November 2016. Pantograph Punch. 18 February 2019.
  5. Web site: One of Them! Television NZ On Screen. Screen. NZ On. www.nzonscreen.com. 18 February 2019.
  6. Web site: Same Same But Different NZ. Same Same But Different NZ. 19 February 2019.
  7. Web site: Herkt . David . Obituary: Author Peter Wells . . 19 February 2019 . 18 February 2019 . Stuff Limited.
  8. Web site: New Year Honours List 2006 . . 18 February 2019 . 31 December 2005 . New Zealand Government.
  9. News: Vine . Geoffrey . Colenso work sets standard for NZ writing . 4 March 2021 . Otago Daily Times . 19 November 2011.
  10. News: Peter Wells, writer and filmmaker who gave literary voice to gay and lesbian New Zealanders, dies aged 69 . . 19 February 2019 . 18 February 2018.
  11. Web site: Award-winning writer, filmmaker Peter Wells dies . . 19 February 2019 . 18 February 2019.
  12. News: Decorated Kiwi author, playwright and filmmaker Peter Wells MNZM dies . . 18 February 2019 . 18 February 2019 . Chumko . Andre . Stuff Limited.
  13. Web site: Peter Wells. www.penguin.co.nz. 19 February 2019.
  14. Web site: Elley . Derek . Memory & Desire . Variety . 20 May 1998 . 19 February 2019.
  15. Web site: Memory and Desire . NZ on Screen . 19 February 2019.
  16. Web site: Wells, Peter. New Zealand Book Council. 19 February 2019. 20 February 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190220002922/https://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/wells-peter/. dead.
  17. Web site: Civic Theatre Foyer. 2009. teara.govt.nz. New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatū Taonga. 18 February 2019. In the 1980s Auckland's grand Civic Theatre was deteriorating and threatened with demolition. This inspired the local writer Peter Wells to make The mighty Civic, a film about its place in the city's cultural history, which captured the dream-like qualities of the theatre's spaces and helped to galvanise public support for its retention..
  18. Web site: Peter Wells . NZ on Screen . 19 February 2019.
  19. Web site: Temples of Wonder - Peter Wells Returns to Napier . Art New Zealand . 19 February 2019 . 4 February 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200204084702/http://art-newzealand.com/Issue101/wells.htm . dead .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Peter Wells (writer)".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.