Selected Work

1. american.nz

I 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 Reveal

My 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.

DAN KEANE