Congratulations to Lee Murray

Close followers of our social media will know we are big fans of Lee Murray's work. So we were delighted to see that Lee received the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 New Years Honours list for services to literature.

Lee is no stranger to awards, having won an amazing five international Bram Stoker Awards® (the Oscars for dark writing and the world’s premier literary horror award), as well as over 25 other national and international awards including the Shirley Jackson Award for psychological horror (the only Kiwi to have done so) as well as being honoured by the NZ Society of Authors and the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Society. She is also a previous recipient of a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.

Lee has written and curated nearly 40 titles since 2007 and describes herself as a New Zealand-based writer of fantasy, science fiction and horror. While this description is correct, with Murray publishing a range of award-winning speculative fiction, it doesn’t really capture the scale or importance of her role in New Zealand’s writing community. Her work in the field of speculative fiction isn’t limited to the page. She’s helped to establish key writing communities in New Zealand, as well as editing several local speculative fiction anthologies including the award-winning Te korero ahi kā. And when she’s not writing, editing or mentoring, Murray helps organise speculative fiction and horror literature events.

A few years ago, we had the great pleasure of interviewing Lee, and what better excuse than a New Zealand Order of Merit do we need to repost it.

We wish to expend our heartfelt thanks to Lee and her film crew Dhaivat Mehta and Harry Oram. Find out more about Lee’s work by visiting her website.

You can watch the full interview , or catch up with Lee's amazing body of work by browsing our selection of works written or edited by her below.

• Into the mist / Murray, Lee
• Into the ashes / Murray, Lee
• Into the sounds / Murray, Lee
• Fox spirit on a distant cloud / Murray, Lee
• Remains to be told : dark tales of Aotearoa
• Black cranes : tales of unquiet women
• Teeth of the wolf / Rabarts, Dan
• Blood of the sun / Rabarts, Dan
• Hounds of the underworld / Rabarts, Dan
• Te korero ahi kā : To speak of the home fires burning