Gavin Strawhan: Prolific screenwriter on his debut crime novel 'The Call'

Originally from Australia, screenwriter Gavin Strawhan is behind some of New Zealand’s biggest TV shows. 

Shortland Street, Outrageous Fortune, Nothing Trivial, and Mercy Peak are just some of the entries on his extended resume, but now he’s turning his focus to the page instead of the screen. 

Set in rural coastal New Zealand, The Call is Strawhan’s debut novel, the novel growing from a story Strawhan was told years ago by a detective. 

“She had given out her number and the girlfriend of a guy in a gang had started ringing her late at night and giving away little tips of information, especially if they had a domestic.” 

Although he's been working in screen and television for over thirty years, he told Newstalk ZB’s Jack Tame that this was what he wanted to do growing up. 

“I took a very long route via television to get back to what I wanted to do.” 

Strawhan went to university for biology, swapping to drama and English after going out with an actress. He wrote for a theatre company years later, before going on to get a job as a trainee script editor on Neighbours. 

“So, you know, these things are going in weird directions.” 

The process of writing a novel is rather different to working in a writer's room, Strawhan telling Tame that while it's an exciting environment, it’s also exhausting. 

“When Covid came along and the production I’d been working on shut down, it was my opportunity.” 

There was no network to pitch an idea to, and he didn’t have to come up with an ending or have everything locked down. 

“I just got up every morning and wrote two or three thousand words, and then I’d go for a walk and then I’d come back and edit what I’d written. 

“It was just so lovely,” he told Tame. “I really enjoyed it.” 

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