Russell Haley was a New Zealand poet, short story writer and novelist.
11 Facts About Russell Haley
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Russell Haley began publishing plays while living in Australia and his writing career continued in New Zealand, where he published several collections of poetry and short stories, and two novels.
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Russell Haley's work was known for its surrealism and imagination, and he wrote about his life and personal experiences of moving between countries.
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Russell Haley served two years of National Service in the RAF and was stationed for some time in Iraq.
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The move to New Zealand was prompted by a chance encounter with poet David Mitchell, from whom Russell Haley learned about New Zealand's open entry policy to university after the age of 21.
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Russell Haley completed his Master of Arts at the University of Auckland in 1970.
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Russell Haley's first published works were radio plays with ABC Australia, broadcast in the late 1960s, and he continued to write plays for the stage in New Zealand.
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Russell Haley's works included The Running European, which was staged at the Young Aucklanders in the Arts Festival in 1968 and published in the 1969 Arts Festival Literary Yearbook.
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Russell Haley published two further novels, The Settlement and Beside Myself, and a biographical study of the painter Pat Hanly called Hanly: A New Zealand Artist.
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Russell Haley was awarded second prize in the non-fiction category for Hanly at the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards.
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In 1987, Russell Haley was the recipient of one of New Zealand's foremost literary awards, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, which allowed him to live and write in Menton, France for the year.