Barbara Else was born in 1947 in Invercargill, New Zealand. She earned an MA (Hons) from Otago University. She has worked as a university tutor, an editor, a freelance writer and has given workshops on getting published. In 1999, she was named a Writer-in-Residence at Victoria University and in 2004 she was awarded a Scholarship in Letters from Creative New Zealand. She became a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to literature in 2005.
Her work includes the plays, Night for Clowns and A Very Short History of the World. Her novels include The Warrior Queen, The Volume of Possible Endings: A Tale of Fontania, Gingerbread Husbands, Eating Peacocks, Three Pretty Widows, The Case of the Missing Kitchen, and Wild Latitudes. Her children's book, The Travelling Restaurant, won the New Zealand Post Children's Book Award.
She also won the College of Education/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence 2016 from the University of Otago and The Margaret Mahy Award 2016.
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