Ruby PorterRuby Porter

Ruby Porter is the author of Attraction, which won the inaugural Michael Gifkins Prize in 2018. Attraction was written during her Masters of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland under supervisor Paula Morris, and published in 2019 by Melbourne-based Text Publishing. Ruby tutors creative writing at the University of Auckland, and in high schools.

Predicting the future of New Zealand with the rising sea

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Covering Climate Now: Ruby Porter looks into New Zealand’s future when the sea level rises 10, 25 and 80 metres, and finds out how much of Auckland will be left. The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here! I grew up in Ponsonby, but the only bay I … Read more

A poetic truth, a love letter: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, reviewed

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Ruby Porter on the first novel by acclaimed Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong.  I came across Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds last year. I read it twice in one day. I was staying outside of New York, at the time, and taking the train in each morning. I remember being disappointed when … Read more

On Levin, and grandmothers: an essay by Ruby Porter

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Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who is not like the grandmother in her book – and Levin, and how the two … Read more

Books: Franz Kafka Was a Sharemilker – Ruby Porter on Murray Edmond

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Ruby Porter reviews Murray Edmond’s first book of prose, four wild visions of a surrealist New Zealand featuring everyone from Winston Peters to Franz Kafka – ‘a kind of punk rock Fred Dagg’.  Strait Men and Other Tales is Murray Edmond’s first book of prose – four linked short stories, dark and funny, artificial and … Read more