dylan owen

Author of ‘Gum Bleeders’

Dylan Owen is a librarian, photographer, and writer and frequently does all three together. He loves mysterious words like ‘providence’ and ‘unconformity’ and exploring strange places like Hihitahi and Three Skulls Road (he didn’t find any skulls). He thinks past photographers like William Williams and Steffano Webb are awesome as are more recent ones like Ans Westra and Zoe Strauss (you should look them all up).

The first music album he remembers seeing was at school. It was Badass. There were naked ladies all over the front and back covers. The musician was Jimi Hendrix (you should check his music out), who will always be cool, just like the kid who smuggled the album into Taita Intermediate.

Unfortunately the books Dylan read at the same time did not turn out to be cool, interesting, uplifting, serious, or even classic. They were crap like the Uncle series (please don’t look them up). These books featured a talking millionaire elephant who wore a purple dressing gown (he’s not making this up – Ed).

One book Dylan does recommend is the graphic short story collection The Heading Dog Who Split in Half: Legends and Tall Tales from New Zealand. These great Kiwi stories by Michael Brown are handsomely illustrated by Mat Tait. You should definitely look it up – it’s legend.