Grant Smithies

Grant Smithies has had some interesting jobs over the years: landscape gardener in Dublin, naked life model at Edinburgh art college, house painter on the East Cape. In the end, a facility with words saved him from a life of dirty fingernails, nagging coughs and paint-splattered clothes. Now a senior entertainment writer and columnist for the Sunday Star Times, he has written extensively on popular culture over 20 years, with work appearing as far afield as Rolling Stone Italy, The Melbourne Age, The Big Issue UK and The L.A. Times. He also appears as a weekly music reviewer on RNZ National and Radio Live, and published the book Soundtrack: 118 Great NZ Albums in 2007. He lives in Nelson with his wife, artist Josephine Cachemaille, daughter Rosa, and 20,000 vinyl LPs.


Grant Smithies at DWRF 2017
Flying Nun at the Cook