Bruce Gilkison

Bruce has lived in Ruby Bay for a few decades, on and off. He had to start writing in the early 1990s. He was an accountant at the time, and wrote to the New Zealand Accountants’ Journal (then NZ’s leading business periodical) to suggest a greater focus on environmental and social issues; the editor wrote back, ‘I will publish everything you write.' Many articles followed, for this and other journals. Two of these, on green taxes and on chemical pollution in Mapua (then NZ’s most toxic site) were short-listed in the British Commonwealth Media Awards. He also wrote a book, Accounting for a Clean Green Environment, jointly with KPMG in 1999.
 
More recently he has been tramping through Scotland and writing a book, Walking with James Hogg, based on an ancestor’s journeys through the Highlands and Hebrides in 1802 to 1804. James Hogg was a writer, a shepherd and an eccentric who, along with much else, wrote a strange book, Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Ian Rankin said this book is ‘urgent in the twenty-first century’ and Irvine Welsh said it was ‘one of the most brilliant books ever written’. Bruce’s book, which at the publisher’s insistence includes his own misadventures along with his ancestor’s, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2016. He was invited to speak on this at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2016.
 
Somewhere over the past couple of decades, writing has become a passion. Outlets have included numerous press releases while working as a volunteer in post-conflict Solomon Islands, reports on business and climate change, and work with a local firm, helping to establish it as ‘world’s best’ in its industry.
 

 
​   Bruce can be contacted at b.gilkison@xtra.co.nz

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