In what’s thought to be the last piece of writing Peter Wells completed before he died, he wonders about his great-grandfather, and the locket he wore all his life. ‘The Story of a Locket’ is published in part here, and features in the extraordinary collection of essays Queer Objects, released this week by Otago University … Read more
Steve Braunias farewells Peter Wells. But really I hardly knew him. “He was a noble man,” said Suzanne Blumhardt, his eldest surviving cousin, at the funeral for author Peter Northe Wells, 1950-2019, at St Matthew-in-the-City in downtown Auckland yesterday morning; one of his closest friends, novelist Stephanie Johnson, said: “He was a born writer and … Read more
Jeremy Hansen pays tribute to author Peter Wells, who died yesterday – exactly a week after the launch of his final book, Hello Darkness, a memoir of living with his fatal illness. The past is a foreign country, especially if you were gay before the internet existed. In 1993 I was 23 years old and … Read more
All week this week we count down the five best books of 2018. Number three: Peter Wells reviews Calypso by David Sedaris. Many people know the sound of David Sedaris’s voice – high, thin, a drizzle of ironic sound. He himself says he has a “lady voice” and part of his shtick is being mistaken … Read more
The fifth – and final – instalment of Peter Wells’ diary of life with cancer, republished from his private Facebook with permission. Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here. April 12, 2:39am I’m back from the dead. The thought struck me today with almost a physical force when I … Read more
The fourth instalment of Peter Wells’ diary of life with cancer, republished from his private Facebook with permission. Read part one here, part two here and part three here. February 20 I’m the luckiest person on earth. I always feel this when I walk into our Napier house. It’s really where Douglas and I are truly … Read more
The return of the patented Spinoff revolutionary live email interview, this time with Peter Wells, author of a new book devoted to the subject of “reclaiming Pākehā history”. Peter Wells is unwell. You may well have read about it in Hello Darkness, his intimate and sometimes harrowing series published at the Spinoff. It records his struggle … Read more
The third instalment of Peter Wells’ diary of life with cancer, republished from his private Facebook with permission. Read part one here and part two here. January 16, 3:27am I set off on my pilgrimage to the oncology clinic in the spirit of my first day at school, with associated nerves and too much baggage … Read more
The second instalment of Peter Wells’ diary of life with cancer, republished from his private Facebook with permission. Read part one here. December 12, 1:56am The humility of my condition. It’s only when I approach the cancer clinic I see all the other wanderers and strays either coming away or walking in the same direction. … Read more
Acclaimed New Zealand author Peter Wells has been keeping a diary ‘talking about what I saw, was going through, thought’ since his cancer diagnosis. November 15, 10.45am View from my hospital room. In the foreground, the green building is where I flatted with my brother Russell in 1974. Russell was a great stylist and the … Read more