He 'was born in Whanganui-a-Tara and is a writer of flash and micro fiction. A graduate of the Master of Creative Writing programme at the University of Auckland, he won the Wallace Foundation Prize for the manuscript of Ten Acceptable Acts of Arson and other very short stories, published by Canterbury University Press in 2021. Cottrell's fiction and nonfiction has appeared in magazines, including the New Zealand Listener, takahē and North & South; on the websites Flash Frontier; The Three Lamps and Turbine/Kapohau; and in the anthologies Ko Aotearoa Tātou/We Are New Zealand (2020) and The year's Best Aotearoa NZ Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume 3 (2021).
Biographical sources
- HIWA: Contemporary Māori Short Stories. Edited by Paula Morris, Consulting Editor: Darryn Joseph. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press, 2023. 21.
Fiction
- Reasons why I called in sick rather than go to the mihi whakatau for new employees last Friday. HIWA: Contemporary Māori Short Stories. Edited by Paula Morris, Consulting Editor: Darryn Joseph. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press, 2023. 23.
- Flash fiction.
- Bricked. HIWA: Contemporary Māori Short Stories. Edited by Paula Morris, Consulting Editor: Darryn Joseph. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press, 2023. 24-25.
- Work and Income Gothic. HIWA: Contemporary Māori Short Stories. Edited by Paula Morris, Consulting Editor: Darryn Joseph. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press, 2023. 26-27.