Books & articles by LSD:
Lloyd Spencer Davis was born in Napier, New Zealand. He went to universities in Wellington and Christchurch before heading overseas to do his PhD at the University of Alberta in Canada. In 1985, he moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, and still calls it home. He is both a proponent and practitioner of creative nonfiction writing and his books to date are distinguished by the unique perspectives he puts on them.

He is the author of Penguin: a season in the life of the Adélie penguin, for which he received the PEN (NZ) Best First Book Award for Nonfiction; The Plight of the Penguin, which was NZ Post's New Zealand Children's Book of the Year in 2002, as well as the winner of the nonfiction category at the same awards; and Looking for Darwin, for which he received a CLL Writer's Award – New Zealand's most significant award for the support of nonfiction – and the Runner’s Up Award as the New Zealand Travel Book of the Year, 2008. He also writes essays for magazines like Natural History and newspapers like the Star Sunday Times: his topics usually involve nature or science and his approach is often very personal.

One of his more recent books is the Smithsonian Q&A Penguins: a book commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution that provides a complete story on penguins in the form of questions and answers, which Lloyd has artfully arranged so that one answer typically leads to the next question – allowing the book to be read from cover to cover, rather like a novel, while still functioning as a reference book. In 2009 he has a new book on penguins being launched called, Penguins of New Zealand (with photographs by Rod Morris).

In addition to being a writer, Dr Lloyd Spencer Davis is also an award-winning scientist, photographer, filmmaker and university teacher. He currently holds the Stuart Chair in Science Communication at the University of Otago where, among other things, he teaches creative nonfiction writing.