Creative writing professor explores empathy in latest novel

Professor Walpert’s latest novel Empathy was published by Mākaro Press in September 2025 and longlisted for the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The novel has also been translated into Bulgarian, with a Turkish translation underway.

Empathy follows marketing executive Alison Morris, who stakes her reputation on a project to sell empathy through a perfume, while her husband develops a video game that asks players to understand one another without directly communicating. At the same time, widower David searches for his chemist father, who has suddenly disappeared, while caring for his young son and teenage daughter.

As their stories unfold, the novel explores connection, family relationships and what can happen when empathy itself becomes something that can be bought and sold.

Professor Walpert says the story did not begin with those ideas fully formed.

“My father had recently passed away, and I knew I wanted to write a story about a father and son.”

The novel developed as he wrote, rather than from a detailed plan. He set himself a target of 1000 words a day, five days a week, until he had completed a first draft.

“The challenge is in making words appear every day and trusting in the process, that the parts will cohere, that ideas will emerge, that events will unify.

“The surprise is that this happens. Characters appear that I did not plan and events occur that I did not expect.”

Although empathy sits at the centre of the novel, Professor Walpert says character and relationships mattered most during the writing process.

“The book wears its theme on its sleeve, that is, the title on the cover: the need for empathy, the risks of empathy. But I do not write with themes in mind; they emerge.”

His work as a novelist also feeds directly into his teaching at Massey, where he coordinates creative writing in the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication.

Professor Walpert began his writing career in poetry and has published four poetry collections. Teaching fiction at Massey helped push his own writing in a new direction.

“Since I was going to teach fiction, I thought I should be writing it,” he says.

That decision eventually led to a short story collection and novels, while his continuing experience as a writer now informs how he works with students.

“My experience as a writer helps me to be a better reader and mentor because what students are going through is what I go through: the challenges of the sentence, the paragraph, the chapter, the character, the plot.”

He says actively writing and publishing also gives him practical experience he can share with students.

“Writing is a lifelong apprenticeship, and what a teacher learns by doing can be brought to bear in the classroom.”

Professor Walpert will discuss Empathy alongside novelist Mia Farlane, author of And How Are Things With You, at Devonport Library on Friday 20 November from 6.30pm to 8pm. The free author talk, moderated by Mākaro Press publisher Mary McCallum, will explore fiction, connection and writing for an increasingly digital world, with refreshments and books available for sale.