
My name is Erin Donohue. I am a poet, novelist and editor living in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. My book Because Everything Is Right but Everything is Wrong (Escalator Press, 2017) was a finalist in two categories in the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and it centres around mental illness, high school and being a teen with the whole world stretched out in front of you. I have been featured in the Auckland Writers Festival, the Nelson Readers and Writers Festival and Verb in Wellington. I write about illness, perception, disability, love, body image and fear and am currently working on a collection of personal essays. I like true crime, therapy, barbershop and my cat Maura, who is named after a Love Island contestant. I am my most authentic self when I am riding my moped on a sunny day or swimming in the sea, in any weather.

It’s changed the way I attend to those I teach. I cannot give it higher praise than that.
Bernard Beckett, author of Genesis, on Because Everything Is Right but Everything Is Wrong

Every school library should have a copy of this book.
The Big Idea