Kevin Cudby

Kevin Cudby is a freelance writer based in Lower Hutt, Kevin contributes regularly to Boating New Zealand, as well as producing numerous articles and other documents for corporate clients.

He has a background in electronics design and manufacturing, and is an accomplished yachtsman.

As an engineer, Kevin developed a special interest in communicating with non-technical audiences about the social implications of advanced technology, an interest that led him to write regularly on technical topics. When, in the early 1990s, New Zealand's electronics industry began to unravel, he decided to make his living from writing. He has a degree in strategic communication management and is working on a post-graduate diploma in literature.

Kevin's fiction is mainly concerned with the evolution of human society and especially with the roles of masculinity and technology. He uses subtle surrealism and not-so-subtle humour to comment on societal trends. For example, his interstellar felines, Zaxocon and Drivel, use psychic phenomena to travel at speeds which present-day physics consider impossible. Similarly, Jason Peabody's robots are powered not by batteries or sub-miniature nuclear reactors, but by internal combustion engines.

Kevin's favourite writers (who probably influence his own writing) include Emily Brontë, Herman Melville, Thomas Pynchon, Elizabeth Knox, Sally M Gearhart, and Italo Calvino.

His publications include Men of Pluck, the history of an early twentieth century sawmilling community, and 'Jason's Crew' (in Salient and JAAM 20), the first instalment of the chronicles of Jason Peabody's mid-life crisis.

List of Publications

Edited

World Words: An Anthology of International Writers in New Zealand (HeadworX, 2006)