Born in Matamata, New Zealand , in 1961, Gregory O'Brien has lived in Wellington since 1989, where he is writer, painter and senior curator at City Gallery Wellington. As well as numerous pamphlets, he has published seven collections of poetry, among them Days Beside Water (Carcanet, 1994) and Afternoon of an Evening Train (Victoria University Press, 2005). With Jenny Bornholdt and Mark Williams, he co-edited An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry (In English), which appeared from Oxford University Press in 1997. A collection of his writings about New Zealand art and literature, After Bathing at Baxter's; Essays and Notebooks, was published in 2002. His books about New Zealand visual arts include Lands and Deeds; Profiles of New Zealand Painters (1996), Hotere out the Black Window (1997) and Welcome to the South Seas: Contemporary New Zealand Art for young people (AUP, 2004). His book-length meditation on France, New Zealand, Modernism and sub-aquaticism is titled News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore (Carcanet 2007).