Paula Morris

Paula Morris is a novelist and short story writer from New Zealand. For ten years, she worked in London and New York, first as a publicist and marketing executive in the record business, and later as a branding consultant and advertising copywriter.

She is the author of three novels for young adults, all published by Scholastic: RUINED, a mystery with a supernatural twist set in New Orleans; DARK SOULS, a novel set in the ancient - and haunted - city of York, England; and UNBROKEN, a sequel to RUINED.

Paula is also the author of award-winning novels for adults, published by Penguin Books in her native New Zealand: QUEEN OF BEAUTY (2002); HIBISCUS COAST (2005); TRENDY BUT CASUAL (2007); and RANGATIRA (2011). RANGATIRA won best book of fiction at the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards and the Nga Kupu Ora Maori Book Awards.

In 2013 she published her first children's book, HENE AND THE BURNING HARBOUR (Puffin New Zealand).

Paula's short stories have been widely published and broadcast in both New Zealand and the US, and her short story collection, Forbidden Cities (2008), was a regional finalist in the 2009 Commonwealth Prize. She is the editor of THE PENGUIN BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY NEW ZEALAND SHORT STORIES (2008).

Both HIBISCUS COAST and RUINED have been optioned for film.

Paula has degrees from universities in New Zealand, the U.K. and the US, including an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has taught creative writing at universities in the US and the UK, and is currently Fiction Writer-in-Residence at the University of Sheffield.