| Rhian Gallagher | |
| Birth Place: | Timaru, New Zealand |
| Genre: | Poetry |
| Notableworks: | Shift |
| Awards: | New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry (2011), Janet Frame Literary Trust Award (2008) |
Rhian Gallagher (born 1961) is a poet from New Zealand.
Gallagher was born in 1961 in Timaru, New Zealand. She currently lives in Dunedin.[1]
Between 1995 and 2005, Gallagher worked in publishing in London before returning to New Zealand.[2] Her first poetry collection, Salt Water Creek, was published in 2003.[3] In 2012, she published her second collection, Shift.[4]
Poetry by Gallagher has been published in a number of literary journals and anthologies including Best New Zealand Poems,[5] 121 New Zealand Poems,[6] The Nature of Things: Poems from the New Zealand Landscape,[7] and The Best of the Best New Zealand Poems.[8]
In 2010 the South Canterbury Museum published her non-fiction biography of mountaineer Jack Adamson entitled Feeling for Daylight: The Photographs of Jack Adamson.[9]
Gallagher collaborated with artist Lynn Taylor and printer Sarah Smith to create the artist book Freda Du Faur, Southern Alps 1909-1913, celebrating the life and achievements of Freda Du Faur, the first woman to climb Aoraki/Mount Cook.[10] [11]
Salt Water Creek was shortlisted for the 2003 Forward Prize for First Collection.[12]
The Canterbury History Foundation awarded Gallagher the 2007 Canterbury Community Historian Award which supported the publication of Feeling for Daylight: The Photographs of Jack Adamson.[13]
In 2008 she was awarded the Janet Frame Award for Poetry.[14] Her poem 'Embrace' placed third in the Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition.[15]
In the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards, Shift won New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry.[16] The collection was included in the New Zealand Listener's Best Books of 2011.[17]
Gallagher held the 2018 University of Otago Robert Burns Fellowship.