About Me

I’m a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication and a particular interest in science history and marine studies. I’ve most recently been researching the reproductive strategies of Zostera muelleri seagrass, and when I’m not thinking about science I’m thinking about horror.

I’ve had around 40 short stories published, in places like Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Apex Magazine, amongst others. A poetry collection on the periodic table, Chemical Letters, was published by Popcorn Press and I’ve written a number of novellas, published by Masque Books, Paper Road Press, and The Book Smugglers. I’ve been nominated for BSFA and Elgin awards, and have won three Sir Julius Vogel awards – twice for best novella (The Ghost of Matter and The Convergence of Fairy Tales) and once for best fan writing, for a series of columns on food and horror. I’ve also had some academic papers on speculative fiction published, and I write reviews on a semi-regular basis for Strange Horizons. I’ve got a poetry collection, Mary Shelley Makes A Monster, forthcoming from Aqueduct Press, and a novel, The Stone Weta, forthcoming from Paper Road Press. My first short story collection, The Mythology of Salt, is also forthcoming from Lethe Press.

I’m a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) and the Horror Writers Association (HWA), and I attended Clarion West 2016. I’ll be the 2020 writer in residence at Massey University/Square Edge.

If you’re looking for something of mine to read, I reckon the best thing I’ve ever done is a short (free!) novel called The August Birds, wherein science history gets mixed up with speculative fiction. If you prefer short fiction, a couple of my favourites are “We Feed the Bears of Fire and Ice” and “The Stone Weta“, which inspired the novel mentioned above.

I also do a lot of tramping, and most of the time I manage not to injure myself. My dream is to one day complete Te Araroa, a walking trail that goes the entire length of NZ. I’ve done bits and pieces of it, and it’ll probably take me another ten years, but one day – one day dammit! – I will finish the thing.

You can contact me at octaviacade (at) hotmail (dot) com. My Twitter handle is @OJCade.