DAN
KEANE
I’m an American writer, editor, and teacher in Aotearoa New Zealand. My work has appeared in Newsroom, The Spinoff, The Washington Post, Harper’s, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope, The Austin Chronicle, ArtForum, ChinaFile, and more. I’ve also been an Associated Press correspondent in Bolivia and on the U.S.-Mexico border, and taught writing at NYU Shanghai, NYU Abu Dhabi, and the University of Michigan.
__I write american.nz, a newsletter on all things NZ/US and gringo life in a fellow former colony. Sign up! It’s free, and draws a good crowd across both countries.
__I’m a PhD candidate at Te Herenga Waka / Victoria University of Wellington, studying the expats of Substack.
__I run great writing workshops at Mrs. Blackwell’s Bookshop in Greytown. More coming in 2026!
Holler anytime at dan@american.nz. Subscribe here for free letters & updates--
The Superman logo is from a painting by Graham Kirk, used with his kind permission. Thanks, Graham!
RECENT WORK
__I reviewed Ellen Rykers’ Bird of the Year for Newsroom’s Book of the Week.
__I argued in The Spinoff that lights at a backcountry hut are like wearing togs in a sauna.
__I researched the post-election mood among New Zealand’s American diaspora for the Global Migrations Conference at the University of Otago.
__I reviewed Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, a memoir by Uyghur poet Tahir Hamut Izgil, for The Washington Post.
__I interviewed Antonia Murphy about her book Madam, her memoir about running a legal brothel in New Zealand, now TV show of the same name.
__Will I die as an American? On the long future abroad, with Gregory Garretson.
__I made this video postcard from small-town NZ rugby, Greytown vs. Eketahuna.
__I interviewed Barry Saunders about his great song “Letter to America.”
__I stood at the windy edge of the North Island and stared across at the South. All the feels.
WORKSHOPS
__How to Write a Newsletter, a Substack workshop (Mrs. Blackwell’s Village Bookshop)
__The Magic of Writing it Down, a journaling workshop (Mrs. Blackwell’s Village Bookshop)
__I hosted a workshop with NZ Poet Laureate Chris Tse, NZ Poet Laureate
__I started the WLS Evening Book Club (now sadly disbanded!)
__I Interviewed Dame Joy Cowley for Featherston Booktown
VIDEO & PODCASTS
__As We Who Have Left Grow Old (american.nz, for for Anzac Day)
__Talking Kiwi in the Dark (american.nz)
__How to Tell a Story / Part 2 (Wairarapa Library Service)
__How to Make Blackout Poems (Wairarapa Library Service)
__Interviewed Selina Tusitala Marsh for the NZ Book Awards
__Read a bunch of poems online during the 2021 lockdown
__’Upon the upland road / Ride easy, stranger’
ETC.
__Played futbol with President Evo Morales
__Spent a night in the shadow of the US-Mexico border wall
__Reviewed Salter & Bolaño (Fiction Writers Review
__My leg was in the Venice Biennale (Harper’s)
__My head was in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog for The Atlantic
__How to Get an A at NYU Shanghai
__Bolivia en camino / en letrero
__上海 White Noise
__‘What am I doing here alone with 3000 sheep?’ //
CONTACT
dan@american.nz | Substack
LinkedIn | Bluesky | Instagram
Letters in bottles addressed to the beach at Ngawi //