Welcome to american.nz!
I’m Dan Keane, an American writer in Aotearoa New Zealand. If you love either country as I do—if either drives you mad the way only family can—then you’ll find a home here. I write letters most weeks, and they’re all free. I put out the occasional podcasts and videos, too. My work comes in three main flavours. Here’s a few examples folks seemed to
Letters to Aotearoa. On kapa haka as a national hug, back country huts as church, the bach vs Airbnb, and our handy shadow currency of Tip Top tubs.
Letters to America. On chicken fingers at midnight, the death wish of Black Rifle Coffee, the soft power of country music, and fear & loathing & Lewis & Clark.
Letters of Transit. On our escape from Shanghai, the true cost of living abroad, the WADA (White American Dude Abroad), and quitting that great expat high.
If you enjoy what you read, consider a paid subscription! It’s cheap, about the price of a coffee each month. Your support makes a big difference in both my family’s grocery bill & my own writerly swagger. You can also just buy me a coffee.
Who am I?
I’m a writer, journalist, and PhD candidate in creative writing at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Here’s my website.
My work has appeared in Newsroom, The Spinoff, North & South, The Washington Post, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, ChinaFile, Zoetrope, The Austin Chronicle, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, among plenty others.
I’m a former Bolivia correspondent for The Associated Press. I’ve also covered the U.S.-Mexico border for The Big Bend Sentinel in Marfa, Texas. I’ve also taught writing at NYU Shanghai, NYU Abu Dhabi, and the Universtiy of Michigan.
I grew up in Tempe, Arizona, which is sister city to NZ’s own Lower Hutt. My family now live just over the hill in the Wairarapa. Maybe this was fate.
What’s with Superman?
The logo is drawn from Superman and Wanganui Hills (1994), by NZ artist Graham Kirk, borrowed with his generous permission. Kirk’s done a whole wonderfully uncanny series of American icons superimposed on Kiwi landmarks, with the familiar heroes lost and dreaming but determined to struggle on. They’ve been my daemon for these letters from the jump. Thanks, Graham! //
