Chris Stuart
Chris Stuart is a crime writer with a social conscience who lives in Nelson. She won the Best First Novel at the 2021 Ngaio Marsh awards for For Reasons of Their Own, which introduced Detective Inspector Robbie Gray to readers. Her second book is The Glasgow Smile. Chris has previously won the Elyne Mitchell Short Story Australian Writing Award and is currently a judge for writing competitions in Australia and New Zealand. Chris grew up in Christchurch and is the oldest of nine children. She trained as a nurse, and then later completed a post-grad degree in Art History, followed by a Masters in International and Community Development. For nearly twenty years she lived in different countries in health sector roles including humanitarian worker, a nurse and a consultant, working with such organisations as Red Cross, Oxfam, the UN and AusAID.
2026 festival sessions
Crime and conscience
Chris Stuart in conversation with Tessa Nicholson
2pm-3pm, Sunday 26 July, Whitehaven Theatre Marlborough, $25
Chris Stuart discovered the power of a good book while working as an international health worker in northern Sudan. Concentrating on reading a John Irvine novel helped distract her from the threat of nearby bombings, sparking a realisation that writing could transport readers far beyond the world around them.
These days Chris is writing page-turner mysteries with the power to distract readers from the world outside our windows. She brings a strong sense of social conscience to her work, drawing on a life of adventures, service, and frontline experience in the global health sector. She talks about her books, For Reasons of Their Own — which introduced DI Robbie Gray — and The Glasgow Smile, and shares stories from her bookworthy life working in health hotspots around the world.
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