Rose Denness was born and educated at Motonui in Taranaki and has worked as a shorthand typist in New Plymouth and Auckland. She has lived in Australia and the United States.
Rose attended the first national conference of Māori Artists and Writers held at Tukaki Marae, Te Kaha at Queen’s Birthday weekened in 1973.
Biographical sources
- Orbell, Margaret. Contemporary Māori Writing. Wellington, N.Z.: Reed, 1970. 147.
- Ihimaera, Witi. "Conference at Te Kaha." Te Ao Hou 74 (1973): 22.
Fiction
- "To the Race - A Son." Te Ao Hou 48 (1964): 6-9. Rpt. in Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and introduced by Margaret Orbell. Wellington, N.Z.: Reed, 1970. 85-90.
- As an old man sits under the old puriri tree reminiscing on his childhood days, he notices a young boy ostracised by the other children. Discovering that the boy has been virtually abandoned by his mother and shunted from relative to relative, the old man becomes his guardian and fulfils his own longing for a son. Bill Pearson comments on this short story in his review of Contemporary Māori Writing in Landfall March 1971 which was later republished in Fretful Sleepers and Other Essays, Auckland, N.Z.: Heinemann Educational Books, 1984.
- "The Moth and the Mutton Bird." Marae 2. 1 (1975): 22-23.