Octavia Cade

Octavia Cade
EducationUniversity of Otago (PhD, 2015)
OccupationWriter
Writing career
GenreClimate fiction
Notable awardsRobert Burns Fellowship (2025)
Academic background
ThesisCommunicating Science Through Poetry from 1780 to the Present (2015)
Lloyd Spencer Davis

Octavia Jane Cade is a New Zealand writer of short climate fiction novels. She held the 2025 Robert Burns Fellowship.

Life and career

Cade holds a master's degree in biology and a PhD in science communication from the University of Otago (completed in 2015).

In 2020 she published The Stone Wētā, a thriller about twelve scientists engaged in the smuggling of climate data.

In 2021 she published the short novel The Impossible Resurrection of Grief, about a marine biologist in the future dealing with a dying climate and ecological devastation.

Cade has held several writers' residencies. In 2020 she had residencies at the Christchurch Arts Centre and Massey University/Square Edge. In 2021 she held a residency at the Michael King Writers Centre. She was the Ursula Bethell writer-in-residence at the University of Canterbury in 2023, and held the 2025 Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago.

Selected works

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Robert Burns Fellow 2025 is Dr Octavia Cade". The New Zealand Society of Authors. 9 October 2024. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
  2. 1 2 Kasmara, Angelique (27 May 2020). "The Stone Wētā by Octavia Cade". Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
  3. ↑ Pyles, Alexander (20 May 2021). "Meditations on Collective Guilt, Culpability, and the Natural World in "The Impossible Resurrection of Grief"". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved 8 October 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Chandra, Shana (1 October 2021). "The Grief of Ghosts". The Landfall Tauraka Review. Retrieved 8 October 2026.