Alie Benge

Contributing writer

Alie Benge is a Wellington-based nonfiction writer. She works as Essay Editor for Takahē and has been published in Takahē, Turbine | Kapohau, Mimicry, and others. She was joint winner of the 2017 Landfall Essay Competition. Her debut essay collection is due out from Te Herenga Waka University Press next year.

Alie Benge and her partner David Coffey on Breakfast

How I accidentally became the face of the ‘brain drain’

It's not an insult to New Zealand to want to travel overseas.

By Alie Benge | 3rd January, 2023

Contributing writer

Dakota Johnson’s Persuasion (Photo: Netflix)

In defence of the new Persuasion movie

Netflix is taking on Jane Austen's Persuasion, and fans of the book aren't having a bar of it.

By Alie Benge | 4th July, 2022

Contributing writer

Alie Benge and her partner David Coffey on Breakfast

How I accidentally became the face of the ‘brain drain’

Or, why it's not an insult to New Zealand to want to travel overseas.

By Alie Benge | 21st April, 2022

Contributing writer

Rose Matafeo in the BBC comedy Starstruck, now streaming on TVNZ OnDemand. (Photo: Supplied)

Review: Starstruck is a hilarious millennial riff on a classic romcom tale

Rose Matafeo does it again with Starstruck – a joyful and unabashedly Kiwi take on the Notting Hill story.

By Alie Benge | 28th April, 2021

Contributing writer

Danyl McLauchlan (Photo: Russell Kleyn)

Tranquillity and Ruin: An essay collection to focus the mind

In which Danyl McLauchlan meditates himself into a hallucinatory state, several times.

By Alie Benge | 1st March, 2021

Contributing writer

A scene from the new Greta Gerwig-directed Little Women

Little Women was more than a story. It was the house I grew up in

Never mind the film: Alie Benge, aka Jo/Meg, on the book that meant the world to her.

By Alie Benge | 8th January, 2021

Contributing writer

Illustration: Tina Tiller

Easy to love: Adventures in online dating

Alie Benge signed up to a dating app with a sense of dread. What she found restored her faith in people – and in love itself.

By Alie Benge | 2nd January, 2021

Contributing writer

Hayley Sproull appears as Mitch in the second season of Golden Boy. (Photo: Supplied)

Review: Golden Boy is a sparkling light of New Zealand comedy

Kiwi comedians unite in Golden Boy to bring us a fun, breezy sitcom that will brighten any bad day.

By Alie Benge | 3rd November, 2020

Contributing writer

Image: Tina Tiller

The more loving one

In the final instalment of her column about her adventures in online dating, Alie Benge ponders a world that isn't afraid of love.

By Alie Benge | 17th October, 2020

Contributing writer

Image: Tina Tiller

I quit online dating to sit with my loneliness. And then I met someone great

In the latest instalment of her column about her adventures in online dating, Alie Benge makes a real connection – and wonders why she can't shake the need for romantic love.

By Alie Benge | 10th October, 2020

Contributing writer