DAN KEANE
I’m an American writer, journalist, and communicator in Aotearoa New Zealand.
I’m a doctoral candidate at International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.
I write the newsletter american.nz.
I host great writing workshops.
I’m getting a PhD in Substack.
dan@american.nz
Substack
Instagram
Bluesky
LinkedIn
CONTACT
Links
Published in
The Washington Post
Harper’s
Newsroom
The Spinoff
North & South
McSweeney’s
Zoetrope
The Associated Press in Bolivia, Colombia, and Mexico
The Austin Chronicle
ArtForum
ChinaFile
The Atlantic Online
The Village Voice
The Big Bend Sentinel
Fiction Writers Review
The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
ISLE
University TeachingNew York University Shanghai
New York University Abu Dhabi
University of Michigan
Workshops
Writing Your Life
Mrs. Blackwell’s Village Bookshop, Greytown, Feb-March 2026
Writing to Reveal,
For The New Zealand Stationary Festival, 10 January 2026, Greytown
How to Write a Newsletter: A Substack Workshop
Mrs. Blackwell’s Village Bookshop, Greytown, May 2025
The Magic of Writing it Down: A Journalling Workshop
Mrs. Blackwell’s Village Bookshop, Greytown, March 2025
Interviews, talks, video & etc.
‘As Ethical as You Can Get, For Sex Work’: Antonia Murphy on Madam american.nz
At the Rugby
american.nz
This Song Won’t Fix the Distance
Barry Saunders, live at home
american.nz
Selina Tusitala Marsh
New Zealand Book Awards
Joy Cowley
Featherston Booktown
The Diaspora on Day One
Global Migrations Conference, University of Otago
Will We Die as Americans?
Live with Gregory Garretson
How to Tell a Story / Part 2
How to Make Blackout Poems
Wairarapa Library Service
’Upon the upland road / Ride easy, stranger’
‘Like Sauron opened a La Quinta Inn’
Read a bunch of poems online during NZ’s 2021 lockdown
How to get an A
NYU Shanghai
上海 White Noise
Bolivia en camino
Bolivia en letrero
‘What am I doing here alone with 3000 sheep?’
Selected Work
1. american.nzI write a newsletter on Substack covering the US/NZ exchange & gringo life abroad in the twilight of empire. Sign up for a free, almost-weekly letter from Aotearoa. Thanks to Graham Kirk for Superman!
2. Writing to RevealMy workshop at The New Zealand Stationary Festival, 10 January 2026 in Greytown, NZ. Come join!
3. At the Rugby
A video postcard from Greytown vs. Eketahuna, for american.nz.
4. How to Argue a Bird
I wrote about avian nationalism and and the heartache of species decline in Ellen Rykers’ Bird of the Year for Newsroom.
5. Land of the Square Blue Tub
I wrote about NZ’s shadow national currency of reusable Tip Top ice cream tubs. For american.nz and reprinted in North & South.
6. Lights at a hut are like togs in a sauna
Do New Zealand’s beloved backcountry huts really need electric lights? My letter on the debate was at american.nz was republished in The Spinoff.
7. A poet’s ground-level account of the collapse of Uyghur society
Tahir Hamut Izgil is a Uyghur poet and filmmaker living in exile in Washington, DC. I reviewed his haunting memoir Waiting to Be Arrested at Night for The Washington Post.
8. Go West!
At NYU Shanghai I taught a long-running humanities seminar comparing narratives of the Western frontier in both the US and China.
9. AP Style
My story “AP Style” was published in Zoetrope: All-Story and also featured in The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
10. Showing a Little Leg
Ellen Altfest’s painting of my right leg was featured in the Venice Biennale. For Harper’s I wrote about her craft, my patience, and the summer we sat still in the Texas desert.
11. The Associated Press
I was the AP correspondent in La Paz, Bolivia from 2006-09, covering President Evo Morales on the field and off. I also reported from Colombia and the US-Mexico border.