Busytown by Jolisa Gracewood

Jolisa Gracewood was born in Dunedin and has been heading steadily northward ever since, via a series of college towns and Tokyo, Japan. In January 2004 she moved from New York City to New Haven, Connecticut, with her astrophysicist partner and the eponymous Busytot. He is now a nine year old who consumes a book a day, with his four year old brother reading over his shoulder.

Jolisa has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Cornell University, which officially makes her comparatively literate. She was named Reviewer of the Year at the 2006 New Zealand Book Awards, won Best Long Review in 2007 and 2008, and publishes regularly in the New Zealand Listener, the New Haven Advocate, and Landfall. A selection of her reviews can be found here.

In 2009 she was a judge for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. She has taught non-fiction writing at Yale University, co-edited two collections of Japanese literature for beginners, and is editing the autobiography of television pioneer, radio legend and historian, Shirley Maddock.

She is also working on a number of secret projects, including a screenplay. In 2006, her short story "Dead Letters" was made into an award-winning short film by Quarter Acre Pictures, written and directed by Paolo Rotondo and produced by Gemma Gracewood and Fraser Brown. (If you've got 13 minutes and 24 seconds, you can watch it here).