Toby Buck is a writer and literary editor working at the intersection of ideas, place, and material life.

His essays, journalism, and criticism have appeared in publications including North & South, JancisRobinson.com, and The Spinoff, and he has made work for National Geographic, the Tate Modern, TIME, BloombergUSA, Magnum Photography, and others. He has won the Katherine Mansfield Prize, the Landfall Essay Prize, and a D&AD Silver Pen.

Based in Amsterdam, he works with international publications and brands on writing and editorial projects that require both intellectual rigour and a strong sense of voice. He is also EMEA Director for Te Mata Estate, one of New Zealand's oldest and most acclaimed wineries.

Featured Essays & Longform

Profiles, Interviews & Reportage

Wine, Food & Material Culture

Commentary / Short Form

Get in contact.

↓ Featured Essays & Longform

Culture, identity, work, and meaning.

In a still From Netflix the Serpent - a man and woman wearing sunglasses walking through an alleyway. The character is based on a famous serial killer. This article is about the man who stopped him.

Herman & The Serpent

The story of a friend who caught a serial killer. Character and form bend at the edge of crime writing.

Illustration of people standing around a large yellow rectangular shape with signs labeled 'Refining Systems' and 'Applying Data' above them.

Is This Happiness?

A critical exploration of the UN World Happiness Report.
Can global wellbeing really be quantified? Or do current metrics obscure more than they reveal.

Gabrielle

A human-centred feature on Pacific cyclone Gabrielle.
Front line reporting where empathy comes first.

‘Profound writing - full of persuasive visual detail, with an incredible ear for everyday speech.’

Emma Kneale, Landfall Journal Editor

‘Brash, unapologetic and completely confident writing. It takes a series of risks, almost sinks itself, and somehow gets away with it. I kept returning to it.’

Charlotte Grimshaw, Mansfield Award Judge

↓ Profiles, Interviews & Reportage

People, practice, voice, and context.

A woman and a child in traditional attire standing on a grassy field, with a thatched-roof hut, palm trees, and three indigenous men dressed in traditional clothing with floral accessories praying in the background.

Oceania in Venice

A profile conversation with Yuki Kihara on Paradise Camp.
Pasifika performance and representation at the Venice Biennale.

A group of ten older adults, along with one middle-aged woman, posing outdoors against a pink wall with a small tree on the left. Several are holding wooden sticks or staffs, and they are smiling.

Portable Miracles

A look at the inception of New Zealand’s unique Poet Laureate programme. Illuminating the cultural logic behind a national literature.

Out of the Box

A cultural portrait of a beachside DIY Coffin Club reveals community, mortality and happiness. All intertwined inside local rituals.

↓ Wine, Food & Material Culture

Food not as lifestyle, but as social practice.
How taste, labour and tradition shape the way we live.

Big Red

A speculative essay on how New Zealand winemakers might be re-imagining a new “big red” identity. What does that say about changes in category, value and tradition?

A close-up of bunches of ripe, dark purple grapes hanging from a vine amidst green leaves.

Regeneration

An essay-style exploration, “A World Upside Down” celebrates wine, soil, and culture in a piece that resists easy categorisation.
JR Prize Winner

A Jurassic Art

An interview with Sam Neill that goes beyond celebrity to interrogate lifelong craft, family and the sensory poetics of viniculture.

A smiling woman wearing a orange safety vest, black face mask, wide-brimmed colorful hat, and black gloves, standing with arms outstretched among green vineyard rows under a partly cloudy sky.

Harvesters

A vivid portrayal of seasonal harvest workers in Hawke’s Bay - labour, landscape, and the often invisible hands behind food production.

↓ Commentary / Short Form

Provisional, responsive, exploratory.

Two people harvesting grapes in a vineyard, with one person using pruning shears to cut a bunch of black grapes from the vine.

Espalier

Memoir that lets personal details ripple into larger questions of memory and belonging.
jancisrobinson.com

Fresh Claret

An ode to Cabernet - the most collaborative of grapes
With notes of home, place, and strawberry.

I’ve also made work for Magnum Photography, MTV, Lexus, Quartz Media, The Whitney, National Geographic, National GalleriesUK, Bloomberg, the Tate Modern, Rockstar Games, VICE, Jaguar, TIME Magazine, and others.