Offshore Service
‘But I couldn’t go home just yet. I would not be a man in anyone’s eyes. That’s how I wound up working for Anton, servicing the coal ships stranded off the coast.’
—from ‘Offshore Service’
In Offshore Service and Other Stories, award-winning author Craig Cliff explores the emotional, economic, cultural and climatic forces that drive our decisions.
Farmers search for purpose on holiday in Fiji. A well-heeled Dunedin suburb receives an influx of refugees. Tensions flare at an Anzac Day barbecue in Perth. Playing out in recognisable settings, these stories follow characters who find themselves beyond familiar shores, struggling to reconcile the passage of time, thwarted aspirations and unexpected responsibilities. What unfolds is explored with humour, heart and hopefulness through a mix of classic storytelling and innovative forms.
Offshore Service is a beautifully written and thoroughly readable collection about life here and now.
Reviews
‘Wow. In Offshore Service, Craig Cliff has written some of the best short stories that I have read in a while. Some old and familiar tropes — childhood, coming of age — are given fresh clothes and new voices, new prospects and horizons. This collection pushes the NZ short story into new trans-Tasman territory … Brisbane, Auckland, Ōtepoti, Freo. I admired the recursive “Connective Tissue”; it is very clever and very funny, and horribly true. Cliff’s characters check our vanities, ambitions and confusions. And he lands on gold with “Kia Kaha, Ōtepoti” … That story is an absolute triumph, and I believe it will feature in anthologies for years and decades to come.’
Lloyd Jones
‘Cliff can charm us all: he can write poignant but unsentimental stories.’
Paula Morris, The Listener (subscriber access may be required)
‘He is such a clever writer of prose that there are many points at which you feel the urge to nudge someone next to you, to point, and to exclaim: did you see that? Did you?’
John McCrystal, NZ Books, reviewing an earlier book by Craig Cliff
‘Craig Cliff adds to the canon, but with such ambition, creativity and sheer energy that he shows there’s still something new to say about a national narrative that can seem, at times, to hold no surprises.’
Charlotte Graham, The New York Times, reviewing The Mannequin Makers
Interviews and features
‘The sparks from one story can sort of shoot across the gap and speak to another story in the collection.’
Craig talks with Jeff Harford about Offshore Service and Other Stories, and the ideas, experiences and 5am writing sessions behind it. OAR FM
‘I am very proud of the fact that I can publish stories that are of this place and are about this place.’
Craig joins Emile Donovan to talk about Offshore Service and Other Stories, his first short-story collection in 16 years. RNZ Nights
‘You just have to write the book you need to write for the readers you believe are out there.’
Craig talks to James Belfield about Offshore Service and Other Stories, the freedom of writing short fiction, and what he learned from reading 52 novels and story collections as a judge for this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Press (subscriber access may be required)
Craig Cliff
Craig Cliff is the author of the novels Nailing Down the Saint and The Mannequin Makers, and the story collection A Man Melting, which won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. His work has been translated into German, Spanish and Romanian. Craig reviews books for a range of New Zealand publications and was the convenor of the judging panel for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. He was Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago in 2017 and now lives with his family in Ōtepoti Dunedin.
More About Craig Cliff