Hello, my name is Erin Marieke Maessen, and I am a writer based in Taranaki.
I am passionate about writing, science, and all manner of bizarre creatures. I am also a full-time Librarian and prolific reader. I write a mixture of memoir, personal essay, and creative non-fiction, focusing on science and societal issues, and am currently working on my first novel. My science experience is broad rather than deep as I spent four years at Massey University dabbling in veterinary medicine, environmental science, geography, evolution, and entomology. I also took a paper on writing creative non-fiction in 2016, and sat in on Rebecca Priestley’s creative science writing class at Victoria University in 2018. I’m a bird nerd (I was the official coordinator of bird-nerd talks for the Massey Student Wildlife club in 2014), and love getting the chance to look for birds and other native creatures in reserves and sanctuaries around New Zealand. I enjoy tramping and being in the outdoors, but I’m also a homebody who loves art, dressmaking, and curling up with a book, sometimes for hours on end.
After living in Palmerston North and Wellington, I returned to my hometown New Plymouth in 2019, accidentally finding my way into my childhood dream job working as a librarian, and now Library Supervisor. Working in libraries has allowed me to observe all levels of society first hand, as we try to serve a complex community. The work has increased my interest in issues around the digital divide, social welfare, homelessness, censorship and the freedom to read. And of course the joy of the right book finding the reader who needs it.
I’ve been interested in conservation since I joined the Kiwi Conservation Club at a young age, and as a teenager I spent several years volunteering at the Rotokare reserve, a predator-free sanctuary near Eltham in Taranaki. I spent a lot of my time there crashing around in the bush monitoring tracking tunnels, but one of my best experiences was getting to help out with a couple of kiwi missions as part of the ‘operation nest egg’ project. In 2018-19 I gained a Masters of Science in Society at Victoria University – that meant learning practical things about science communication, as well as getting to have great discussions with my classmates and tutors about things like science history, women in science, science and policy, and the role of scientists as activists. We looked at topics including gene editing, freshwater management, climate change and risk communication, and mātauranga Māori – as well as thinking about hard questions like ‘what is science’. As part of my Masters I wrote a children’s picture book about eels, a research essay about the way climate change is depicted in novels, and a creative non-fiction essay about the development of the Rotokare scenic reserve. I also did a major research project exploring people’s attitudes to native eels, which you can read more about here.
I’m interested in writing about science, people, and the way they interact, particularly topics relating to conservation and the environment, or issues around society (especially if they relate to reading or libraries). I love weird creatures like insects and reptiles, and have a particular soft spot for the longfin eel. I always enjoy learning new things, and I’m keen to write about just about anything if it grabs my interest. You can get in touch with me here, or check out my portfolio for examples of my work.
Erin Marieke Maessen 