Dan Bain is a theatre director, playwright, and standup comedian, based in Christchurch, New Zealand.

He most recently adapted Homer’s Odyssey for three comedy actors, which won the 2024 Adam Best NZ Play Award, as well as best adaptation, and best South Island Play.

His first attempt at a novel—Crookback—won the Grand Prize at the 2025 Stockholm Writer’s Festival.

As part of his prize package, we arranged a virtual meeting with literary agent John Baker of Bell Lomax Moreton. Dan was signed as a result, and now his novel is out on submission.

He is currently working on this, as well as his second novel Stupid Human Family, and a new theatre adaptation/subversion of the works of Lewis Carroll, Eliza in Wonderland.

Dan is currently the Artistic Director of Little Andromeda Fringe Theatre and the head of The Malthouse Drama School.

More at iamdanbain.com

Take us back to the moment you first found out you had been longlisted. Where were you, and what was your immediate reaction?

I’m not sure where I was when I found out that I was long and short listed, but I do know what my attitude was to it from the social posts I made about it. Which was, ‘hey, isn’t this cool, but nothing is going to come of this, because my entry is pure genre nonsense and prizes get awarded to literary things that are very ‘worthy’ and this is a story about people falling off airships and animated corpse meat being made into weapons of mass destruction.’

So yes, I was very pleased, but didn’t really invest a lot of hope or expectation into either the long or short listing. I just took them for what they were, some recognition that the work was readable and I should maybe try circulating it again.

When you finally learned you were the grand prize winner, what emotions came up for you in that moment?

I was half asleep when I got the email, as I’d just woken up and was still in bed. So I was quite, quite confused. I said to my wife, Laura, ‘Uhhh, you know that competition I got shortlisted for? I think, um, I think I just won it. Like, won.”

I think it’s maybe a New Zealand thing—we aren’t very good at dealing with successes—because my immediate emotional reactions were puzzlement, ‘how did this happen?’ and suspicion, ‘have they made a mistake?’

But, after both of us reading the email several times we decided that yes it was real, no it couldn’t be a mistake, and oh gosh, this is quite a big deal. We went out for breakfast. I had chicken and waffles from my favourite place.

Several days later I was still talking about it. (The prize, not the waffles, though they were also good.)

What originally motivated you to enter the Stockholm Writers Festival First 5 Pages Prize in the first place?

At the end of 2024 I decided that 2025 was ‘the year of submitting things’, so if anything came across my desk, or social feed, I would submit something to it. So, competitions, residencies, funding opportunities, photography, writing, music, whatever, I just decided I would submit to everything I could and see what came of it.

My wife forwarded me the link to the Stockholm competition, which was not on my radar at all. Initially I just entered my current WIP Stupid Human Family, and then on a whim also put in my abandoned desk drawer first novel, Crookback. I’m very glad I did.

Where do you usually draw your creative inspiration from, and how did that influence the piece you submitted?

I have very few ‘good’ ideas, so when I get one I try to wring the most out of it. I’ve been trying to execute the one that became Crookback for a long time across multiple different mediums. First as a cabaret show, then a short film, then as a radio play, all of which are the forms I usually work in and where I’m most confident.

However, none of them could really get the world building and complexity that I was aiming for, so in the end I decided that if I wanted to do the idea justice I’d need to attempt a novel. This was a terrible decision, as they are very hard.

Unfortunately, due to the distance and travel times involved, and your live performance schedule, you could not attend SWF25 in person, but what did it mean to you to still receive the recognition from the Stockholm Writers Festival, the agent meeting and the developmental edit from Reedsy?

I would have loved to have come, and despite the distance was seriously contemplating it, but it was right in the middle of an eleven-week contract playing Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, and I just couldn’t justify dropping out of it to fly to Stockholm. As cool as that sounds, ‘Yeah, I dropped out of the show. Had to fly to Stockholm for an award.’

The recognition of the work was very meaningful. Apart from my plays, which are an offshoot of my directing career, and despite my aggressive ‘year of submit to everything’ policy, I have had zero acknowledgement or interest in my writing in New Zealand. To have won this really significant international prize is very heartening and nourishing.

The prize itself is both extraordinarily generous and incredibly useful.

At the risk of prying, how did your Agent meeting go, and in the same prying vein, how did the Reedsy developmental edit work out?

My agent meeting went very well. I opted to meet with John Baker, who seemed like his wishlist most aligned with the book. Although I had to do it by zoom rather than in person, I think that was to my advantage, as I spent most of the time asking how the festival was going and what it was like.

Some people might shudder at this misuse of limited time - talking about food trucks - but it was actually my plan for the meeting. I think it builds rapport and also makes the person pitching seem less sweaty and desperate, which in turn makes the person being pitched to more at ease.

Eventually John asked about the book, and—as I’d squandered the time on hotel tips and exchange rate talk—I only had a few minutes left, which was a great way to be forced to be concise. It’s this and this and this. Boom, boom, boom. He liked the sound of it and gave me his email to send him some stuff. Embarrassingly I promptly lost it when the zoom closed.

The Reedsy experience was also very easy and super useful. I queried five potential developmental editors who seemed to be in the genre wheelhouse and sent them a sample, and then they responded with their rates and what they were seeing in the material and what their services would look like.

In the end I went with Greg Cox, who was a development editor at TOR for a big chunk of his career and seemed like he ‘got it’ the most. He did a great job of helping me prune the messy bits and pointing out where I was being lazy and needed to do some more work. It was a great service and experience, but quite (understandably) expensive, so I don’t think it’s something I’d ever have had access to without this prize.

Once I’d gone through this project I followed up with John at Bell Lomax Moreton, who was keen on it, and he seemed to get it, and also just generally is a pleasant chap, so… now I have a literary agent? I mean I signed some stuff, so, I guess it’s real?

Doesn’t feel real.

How has winning this prize shaped your confidence or your sense of direction as a writer moving forward?

Winning the Stockholm prize and the associated run on benefits that have come from that have made me completely reappraise where I’m putting my creative energy in the immediate future. My career is very lizard-like. I follow heat. This has generated a significant amount, so I am aggressively chasing it to see what might happen. It’s opened up a world that seemed so distant and inaccessible to me that it may as well have not existed and I will always be grateful for that.

Would you recommend the First 5 Pages Prize and the Stockholm Writers Festival to other writers who feel ready to take the next step, and why?

Absolutely. Yes, you must. You must enter it. Someone has to win it! I won it, and I’m just some guy at the bottom of the world! Why not you?

Introducing Dan Bain - First Prize Winner of the SWF25 First 5 Pages Prize