BIOGRAPHY

Russell Kirkpatrick was born in 1961 in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he lived until 2000. He fell in love with maps at an early age, and had created a number of new worlds before he ever started writing about them. The largest, a map 4 metres by 3 metres in size, hung for years in his high school library, until everyone forgot what it was doing there.

He is a geography PhD graduate of the University of Canterbury, and currently works part-time at the University of Waikato. During the 1990s he was fortunate enough to work on two major atlas projects, as Deputy Editor of the New Zealand Historical Atlas, and as author of Contemporary Atlas New Zealand. He continues to work on mapping projects when he has the time.

Apart from cartography and writing, his major passions are reading, music – anything except country & western and polka - and sport. He plays golf and cricket competitively, though he gets more laughs than applause at the latter.

Russell is married to Dorinda, and they have two fine young men, a bichon frise, assorted cats, a ridiculously large Lego collection and a hole in the ground where their new house is supposed to be.