Renee Liang

Renee Wen-Wei Liang MNZM (born 1973) is a New Zealand paediatrician, poet, essayist, short story writer, playwright, librettist, theatre producer and medical researcher. She has been the recipient of several awards for her services to arts, science and medicine and is also noted for her services to the Chinese New Zealand community. She lives in Auckland.

Renee Liang

MNZM
Liang in 2018
BornRenee Wen-Wei Liang
1973 (age 46–47)
New Zealand
OccupationWriter

Biography

Liang was born in 1973.[1] She is a second generation Chinese New Zealander[2][3] and has two younger sisters, Rhea (a surgeon) and Roseanne (a filmmaker).[4]

She graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery in 1996, a Master of Creative Writing in 2007 and a Postgraduate Diploma of Arts (Theatre) in 2009.[1] She also holds a specialist qualification as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.[5]

She has toured eight plays to festivals and venues nationally.[2] Her poetry and short stories have been published in both New Zealand and overseas journals and websites such as New Zealand Listener, JAAM, Blackmail Press, Tongue in your Ear, Sidestream and Magazine.[6][7][8] The Bone Feeder was performed as an opera on 23 March 2017 at the Auckland Arts Festival.[9][10] Her Interactive digital narrative work Golden Threads was created in partnership with illustrator Allan Xia as part of Auckland Museum's 2017 exhibition "Being Chinese in Aotearoa: A photographic journey".[11][12]

She has also run many community writing workshops, including a programme for migrant women called New Kiwi Women Write Their Stories,[8] and from these has produced a number of anthologies of migrant women’s writing.[1][6] The Kitchen is a writing workshop based around sharing stories in local neighbourhoods.[13]

As a paediatrician, she has a special interest in child health and adolescent health and leads the Asian Advisory Group for the longitudinal project Growing Up In New Zealand.[6][14][3]

Liang lives in Auckland.

Honours and awards

Liang's play The Quiet Room was shortlisted for the Adam NZ Play Award in 2014; it also won the teen section of Playmarket’s Plays for the Young in 2014 and the NZ Writers Guild SWANZ (Script Writer Awards New Zealand) Award for Best Play in 2016.[1] Under the Same Moon was a finalist in the SWANZ Best Play Awards in 2015.[15] Golden Threads won the Play by Play Award for Diversity in 2017.[16]

In 2010, Liang was the recipient of the Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader Award for her achievements in arts, science and medicine.[5][1] In 2012, she won the non-fiction category of the Royal Society Manhire Prize in Science Writing for Creative Non-Fiction with her piece Epigenetics: navigating our inner seas.[17][18]

She received the NZ Chinese Society (Auckland Branch) Senior Achievement award in 2012[3] and won the Arts and Culture category of the NEXT Woman of the Year Awards in 2018.[1][19]

She was a recipient of the D’Arcy Writers Grant in 2018[20] and her resulting essay, A Kete Half Empty, was published in North & South in January 2020.[21][22]

In the 2018 New Year Honours, Liang was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the arts.[6]

Published works
Poetry
  • Chinglish (Soapbox Press, 2008)
  • Banana (Monster Fish Publishing, 2008)
  • Cardiac Cycle, illustrated by Cat Auburn (Monster Fish Publishing, 2008)
  • Towards the Cyclone (Monster Fish Publishing, 2010)
Plays, operas and musicals
  • First Asian AB
  • Lantern (2009)
  • The Bone Feeder (2010)
  • The Quiet Room (2013)
  • Under the Same Moon (2015)
  • Dominion Road the Musical with music composed by Jun Bin Lee (2017)
  • The Bone Feeder: adapted as an opera with music composed by Gareth Farr (2017)[23][9]
  • Sofija's Garden (2019)[24]
Digital
  • Golden Threads (2017)
Non-fiction
  • When We Remember To Breathe: Mess, Magic and Mothering with Michele Powles (Magpie Pulp, 2019) [25]
As editor
  • New beginnings: new Kiwi women write their stories (Monster Fish Publishing, 2012)
  • New flights: writing from Kiwi migrant women (Monster Fish Publishing, 2015)
gollark: (Chrome rendering engine)
gollark: It's always been Blink.
gollark: And this "puffin" thing's main selling point appears to be... running websites on some random cloud servers instead of your actual device somehow? This seems terrible.
gollark: Opera is not actually a search engine.
gollark: Troubling./

References
  1. "Liang, Renee". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. June 2019. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  2. "Renee Liang". Playmarket. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  3. "Dr Renee Liang". New Zealand Asian Leaders. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  4. "Screen Sisters: Renee Liang and Roseanne Liang in Conversation". The Pantograph Punch. 26 July 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  5. "Dr Renee Liang, 2010 Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader Award Recipient". The Governor General. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  6. "Dr Renee Liang, of Auckland, MNZM, for services to the arts". The Governor General. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  7. Liang, Renee (10 May 2019). "The Friday Poem: Contents of a mummy Tardis handbag by Renee Liang". The Spinoff. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  8. "About Renee Liang". New Kiwi Women Write Their Stories. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  9. "The Bone Feeder". SOUNZ. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  10. Hooper, Michael (24 March 2017). "Moving libretto, genius musical amalgam". Theatreview. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  11. "华夏人与长白云故乡 Being Chinese in Aotearoa: A photographic journey". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  12. "Golden Threads | 黄金线索". Allan Xia. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  13. "The Kitchen". Arts Whau. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  14. "Theme Leads: Dr Renee Liang: Asian". Growing Up in New Zealand. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  15. "SWANZ Awards". NZ Writers Guild. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  16. "2017 Winners". NZ Games Festival. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  17. "Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing Announced". Scoop. 22 November 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  18. "Creative Science Writing Prize". The Big Idea. 22 November 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  19. Wylie, Liz (16 October 2018). "Whanganui's Kotuku Foundation founder Merenia Donne named in Woman of the Year awards". NZ herald. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  20. "Winners of the 2018 D'Arcy Writers' Grants – Renee Liang and Mary Paul". NZSA The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa PEN NZ Inc. 20 December 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  21. Liang, Renee (15 January 2020). "A Kete Half Empty: Why poverty in New Zealand is everyone's concern". Write Up North. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  22. Liang, Renee (15 January 2020). "A Kete Half Empty: Why poverty in New Zealand is everyone's concern". Noted: North and South. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  23. "Good to be here, Dargaville! Playwrights Jamie McCaskill, Renee Liang and Jess Sayer on Process". The Pantograph Punch. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  24. "Sofija's Garden". Going West Writers Festival. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  25. Michael, Botur (3 May 2019). "Northland doctor Renee Liang launches new book 'When We Remember To Breathe'". Write Up North. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
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