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Dunedin-born Neville Peat is the author
or co-author of more than 30 books that explore themes of geography, natural history, environment and biography. He has been a finalist in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards three times and once in the New Zealand Post Children Book Awards. His most recent biography of Sir Tim Wallis was a bestseller. His most recent titles for Otago University Press are: Seabird Genius, a biography of Lance Richdale, Kiwi - The People's Bird , a landmark work on New Zealand national bird and efforts to save it, and Detours, which documents a marathon bike-ride from Cape Reinga to Stewart Island in search of 'heartland' New Zealand. Neville is a photographer and illustrates much of his own work.
Commissioned work outside publishing has included museum projects such as Otago Museum's Southern Land, Southern People gallery and a comprehensive report on New Zealand's subantarctic islands that earned World Heritage Area status for the five groups of islands. Neville's experiences overseas include six months in South America, two summers in Antarctica and a year as editor of Tonga's weekly newspaper.
With Brian Patrick he has written Wild Dunedin (winner, Natural Heritage category, 1996 Montana New Zealand Book Awards), Wild Fiordland (finalist in the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Awards), Wild Central (finalist in the 2000 Montana Book Awards), and Wild Rivers.
He is also the author of several of Otago's popular Local Guides series: The Catlins and the Southern Scenic Route, Stewart Island: A Rakiura Ramble, Wanaka: The Lake Wanaka Region and Queenstown: New Zealand's Adventure Capital, as well as Southern Land, Southern People.
In 1998, he was elected to the Otago Regional Council and in 2007 was deputy chairperson and the chair of the council's Environment and Science Committee.
Neville is a fifth-generation descendent of Scottish pioneers in Otago. He lives at Broad Bay on Otago Peninsula with his wife Mary and daughter Sophie.
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