Ngahuia te Awekotuku is a short story writer, author of award-winning non-fiction, essayist, poet and spokeswoman on Māori, feminist and lesbian issues. Born in Rotorua of Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi and Waikato descent, Awekotuku contributes to various communities and organisations as an activist, curator, teacher and professor. In 1981, she became the first Māori woman to earn a doctorate from a New Zealand university. She is also the first Māori woman to become an Emeritus Professor.
Amelia Batistich (1915–2004) QSM. From her first published story ‘Roots’ in the Listener in 1948 featuring a Māori protagonist to her 2001 memoir Never Lost for Words, Amelia explored the consciousness of minority and migrant groups, explaining non-British immigrant people of New Zealand through the lens of her Dalmatian ancestry and a sense of an identification of otherness. In recalling the inspiration for her two novels and two short story collections, Amelia celebrates ‘two places intertwined in my affections. Dargaville where I was born and lived my first, most impressionable years, and Dalmatia, my ancestral home. I grew up belonging to both. The Northern Wairoa River and the Adriatic Sea flow together in my mind. I had never seen the Adriatic, but my imagination was flooded with stories about that other life on its shores.’ Hailed as an astute chronicler of minority experience, Amelia carved new spaces in the country’s literature: Patricia Grace acknowledges Amelia’s importance as a model for variant voices. In four decades of School Journals, she sensitively introduced children to diversity. A prolific short story writer, Amelia’s finest achievement — her most anthologised and translated story — is the title story of An Olive Tree in Dalmatia (1963).
Evana Belich was born in Wellington and now lives in Auckland where she has worked as a trade union official, a mediator and an employment relations adviser. She has degrees in law, dispute resolution and a Master’s in creative writing from the IIML. She won the Fish Short Story Prize in 2013, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2016 and came second in the Sargeson Prize in 2020. She is a recipient of the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship for 2023. Her story collection How to Get Fired was published in March 2023.
Norman Bilbrough (1941–2022), was born in Feilding, educated in Wellington, and worked as a teacher, literary assessor, reviewer and writer of novels and short stories for both adults and young adults. He won the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition in 1995 and the New Zealand section of the International PEN competition in 1999. His young adult novel, The Birdman Hunts Alone (Puffin), was a finalist in the AIM Book Awards in 1995, and his collection of young adult stories, Dog Breath and other stories (Mallinson Rendel), was shortlisted for the 2000 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. His two books for adults were a collection of short stories, Man with Two Arms (Vintage, 1991), and the novel A Short History of Paradise (Penguin, 2005). His short stories have been frequently broadcast on radio and published in a wide number of publications, including the NZ Listener, Newsroom and the School Journal.
Ben Brown (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Paoa) is an acclaimed writer, poet, performer and publisher who lives in Lyttelton, New Zealand. Born in Motueka, he has previously worked as a tobacco farm labourer, market gardener and tractor driver, and has been writing and publishing since 1992. Brown is the author of a number of award-winning children’s books, non-fiction works, and short stories for children and adults, many of which have strong New Zealand nature themes. In 2021 Ben Brown was appointed as the inaugural Te Awhi Rito New Zealand Reading Ambassador for children and young people, a role which advocates for and champions the importance of reading in the lives of young New Zealanders, their whānau and communities.
Eleanor Catton is the author of The Luminaries (2013), winner of the Booker Prize, the Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award, and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal (2009), won the New Zealand Best First Book of Fiction Award and the Betty Trask Prize, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her most recent book is Birnam Wood (2023). Born in 1985 in Canada and raised in New Zealand, she lives in Britain.
Craig Cliff is the author of the short story collection, A Man Melting (2010), which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, and the novels The Mannequin Makers (2013) and Nailing Down the Saint (2019). In addition to writing fiction, poetry, essays, newspaper columns and book reviews, Craig works in, and researches, climate change mitigation at the University of Otago.
Marilyn Duckworth, novelist, short story writer and poet, was born in Auckland but has lived mainly in Wellington. Her first novel, A Gap in the Spectrum, was published in the UK when she was 23; her fifth, Disorderly Conduct (1984), won a New Zealand Book Award. Her seventeenth novel Playing Friends was released in 2007. She has held the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship in Menton, a Fulbright Fellowship and also writing fellowships at Victoria and Auckland universities. In 1996 Leather Wings was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In 2016 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.
David Eggleton is a writer, poet and critic based in Ōtepoti Dunedin. He has won a number of awards for his writing. He is the author of a variety of books, including a collection of short fiction, and has also produced a number of published but uncollected short stories. His first collection of poems, South Pacific Sunrise, was published by Penguin New Zealand in 1986.
Fiona Farrell’s first novel The Skinny Louie Book won the New Zealand Book Award in 1993. Since then three of her six subsequent novels have been shortlisted for the award, while four have been longlisted for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. Her poetry and non-fiction have also received recognition and her plays continue to be among the most frequently performed in Playmarket NZ’s catalogue. Her poetry and fiction appear in many anthologies. She has been a guest at festivals throughout New Zealand and overseas. In 2007 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction and in 2012, the ONZM for Services to Literature.
Sia Figiel is a Samoan novelist and poet, often described as Samoa’s first contemporary woman novelist. Her first book, where we once belonged (1996), won the Best First Book award in the South East Asia/South Pacific region of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1997. Her subsequent novels are They who do not grieve (1999) and Freelove (2018). Figiel has also published two volumes of prose poetry, and she has won the 1994 Polynesian Literary Competition. Well known as a performance poet, she is a frequent guest at literary festivals and has held residencies at the Institucio de les Lletres Catalanes, Spain; the Pacific Writing Forum at the University of the South Pacific; the University of Technology, Sydney; and the East-West Center — Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i.
Janet Frame (1924–2004) was a celebrated New Zealand author of novels, short stories, poetry and the three-volume autobiography An Angel at My Table that was adapted for cinema by Jane Campion. Janet Frame won numerous local and international literary prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book, and was an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and holder of two honorary doctorates. She was awarded a CBE in 1983, and in 1990 she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand, which is New Zealand’s highest civil honour. Her work is in print around the world and has been translated into many languages.
Maurice Gee has long been considered one of New Zealand’s finest writers. He has written more than 30 books for adults and young adults and has won numerous literary awards, including the UK’s James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the Wattie Award, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, the New Zealand Fiction Award and the New Zealand Children’s Book of the Year Award. In 2003 he received an inaugural New Zealand Icon Award and in 2004 a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.
James George is a novelist and short story writer of Ngāpuhi, English and Irish descent. Zeta Orionis (an excerpt from his novel Hummingbird) won the premiere award in the 2001 Māori Literature Awards, judged by Keri Hulme and the novel was a finalist in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (2004), and the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize (2005). His novel Ocean Roads appeared on the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Shortlist as one of the Best Books in the South East Asia and South Pacific region and was shortlisted in the fiction category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2007. James was also a recipient of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellow in 2007. He teaches creative writing at AUT.
Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers. She has published over 35 titles, including novels, short story collections, works of non-fiction and books for children. All of her children’s books have been translated into te reo Māori. Among numerous awards, she won the New Zealand Fiction Award in 1987 for the much-loved Potiki. She was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 with Dogside Story, which won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize. Tu won the 2005 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Fiction Prize and the Deutz Medal for Fiction and Poetry. Her children’s story The Kuia and the Spider won the Children’s Picture Book of the Year and she has also won the New Zealand Book Awards For Children and Young Adults Te Kura Pounamu Award. Patricia was born in Wellington and lives in Plimmerton on ancestral land, in close proximity to her home marae at Hongoeka Bay.
Charlotte Grimshaw is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, two outstanding collections of linked short stories and a memoir, The Mirror Book, non-fiction finalist in the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She has been awarded the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship and is a winner of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award. Her story collection Opportunity was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Prize, and won New Zealand’s premier Montana Award for Fiction, along with the Montana Medal for Book of the Year. She was also Montana Book Reviewer of the Year. Her story collection Singularity was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Prize and the Asia Pacific section of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Her novel, The Night Book, was a finalist for the New Zealand Post Award. Her novel Mazarine was longlisted for the 2019 Ockham Book Awards. She is a columnist and reviewer for the New Zealand Listener and Newsroom. She has won a Qantas media award for her columns, and won the 2018, 2019 and 2021 Voyager Media Award for Reviewer of the Year. Her bestselling novels The Night Book and Soon were made into the TV miniseries, The Bad Seed.
Dominic Hoey is a poet, author and playwright based in Auckland, New Zealand. His debut novel Iceland was a New Zealand bestseller, long-listed for the 2018 Ockham Book Award and his short story ‘1986’ won the 2021 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award. His latest novel Poor People With Money was released by Penguin in August 2022 and spent four months in the New Zealand bestseller list. Dominic has written and performed two one-person hit shows about his bone disease and his inability to get arts funding. In a former life, Dominic was an MC battle and slam-poetry champion. Through his Learn To Write Good creative writing course, Dominic has taught hundreds of students around the world how to think dyslexic. He also works with young people through the Atawhai programme, teaching art, yoga and meditation to help them with their mental health and self-esteem. Currently he lives with a small, vicious dog and dreams of one day owning an animal rescue farm.
Witi Ihimaera is an award-winning writer of Māori descent. His first novel Tangi (1973), the first novel written by a Māori, won New Zealand’s premier literary award of the time, the Wattie Book of the Year (1974). Since then he has maintained an astonishing award-winning career, nationally and internationally, as one of New Zealand’s most important writers. Four of his books have been made into feature films, including the internationally acclaimed Whale Rider, which premiered in 2002. His titles continue to be translated for the world market, most recently the novella White Lies in an Amharic language (Ethiopian Semitic) edition.
Stephanie Johnson MNZM is the author of several collections of poetry and of short stories, some plays and many fine novels. Her novel The Shag Incident won the Montana Deutz Medal for Fiction in 2003, and Belief was shortlisted for the same award. Stephanie has also won the Bruce Mason Playwrights Award and Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, and was the 2001 Literary Fellow at the University of Auckland. Many of her novels have been published in Australia, America and the United Kingdom. She co-founded the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival with Peter Wells in 1999. She is the 2023 recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature.
Lloyd Jones is one of New Zealand’s best known contemporary writers. He has published essays and children’s books, and his distinctive works include the novels The Book of Fame, winner of numerous literary awards; Biografi, a New York Times Notable Book; Choo Woo; Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance; Paint Your Wife; Hand Me Down World, shortlisted for the Berlin International Literature Award; The Cage; and the phenomenally successful Mister Pip, winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Montana Medal for Fiction and the Kiriyama Writers’ Prize. Mister Pip was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007. His latest novel is The Fish.
Tim Jones is a poet, author and anthologist who lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington. He was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship in 2022. His recent books include poetry collection New Sea Land (Mākaro Press, 2016) and climate fiction novella Where We Land (The Cuba Press, 2019). His novel Emergency Weather is due to be published by The Cuba Press in 2023.
Fiona Kidman has published over 30 books, including novels, poetry, non-fiction and a play. She has worked as a librarian, radio producer and critic, and as a scriptwriter for radio, television and film. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships; in more recent years, her novel This Mortal Boy won the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize, the NZ Booklovers Award, the NZSA Heritage Book Award for Fiction and the Ngaio Marsh Crime Writing Award for Best Novel. Her non-fiction work So Far, For Now has been longlisted for the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She was created a Dame (DNZM) in 1998 in recognition of her contribution to literature, and more recently a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.
Shonagh Koea has written many short stories, eight novels and a memoir. She won the Air New Zealand Short Story Award in 1981, was awarded the Fellowship in Literature at the University of Auckland in 1993 and the Buddle Findlay-Sargeson Fellowship in Literature in 1997. Her third novel Sing to Me, Dreamer was shortlisted for the Arts Council of New Zealand Book Awards for Fiction in 1995. Her fifth novel The Lonely Margins of the Sea was runner-up for the Deutz Medal for Fiction in the Montana Book Awards in 1999. She lives and works in Auckland.
Sarah Laing is an award-winning cartoonist, short story writer, novelist and graphic designer. She has published five books of her own and illustrated a number of children’s books, made zines and co-edited Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women’s Comics. Her graphic memoir, Mansfield and Me, was longlisted in the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and was published in both New Zealand and the UK, where it was favourably reviewed by the Guardian and the Sunday Times Literary Supplement. Sarah has been the recipient of the Michael King and the Frank Sargeson literary fellowships in Auckland. She won the 2006 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition with ‘The Wrong Shoe’.
Sue McCauley is an award-winning writer of fiction, plays and non-fiction and has worked as a journalist, copywriter and scriptwriter as well as taught writing. Her first novel, Other Halves (1982), won the Wattie Book of the Year Award and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction and was made into a film. Her novel Then Again was shortlisted for the 1987 Wattie Book Awards and her first short story collection, It Could be You (1997), was shortlisted for the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She wrote the text of Escape from Bosnia: Aza’s Story (1996), which was shortlisted for the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She also received the Mobil Radio Award for drama (1982) and was a finalist in the NZ Writers’ Guild Best Screenplay Award (1993). In 1986 she was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal. In 2004 Sue, with her husband Pat Hammond, returned to the Waitahora Valley, east of Dannevirke, to restore and live on the farm where she had lived as a child.
Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore) is author of The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke and co-editor of Black Marks on the White Page, an anthology that celebrates Māori and Pasifika writing. In 2016 her story ‘Black Milk’ won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Pacific region. Her first novel Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings won the 2014 Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award for Fiction, also won by her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa (2010). In 2022, while she was an Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence, she won the Landfall Essay Competition. She convenes one of the MA creative writing workshops at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.
Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English and French descent. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English from The University of Auckland and is now a lecturer in the English Department, specialising in Pasifika literature. Her first collection, the bestselling Fast Talking PI, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry in 2010. Marsh represented Tuvalu at the London Olympics Poetry Parnassus event in 2012; her work has been translated into Ukrainian and Spanish and has appeared in numerous forms live in schools, museums, parks, billboards, print and online literary journals. As Commonwealth Poet (2016), she composed and performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey. She became New Zealand’s Poet Laureate in 2017. Her debut children’s book and memoir, Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference, was awarded the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year — 2020 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Owen Marshall is a fiction writer and poet. In 2013 he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction. He graduated with an MA (Hons) from the University of Canterbury, which in 2002 awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, and in 2005 appointed him an adjunct professor.
Tze Ming Mok is a writer and race sociologist, best known for acerbic political commentary on issues affecting Aotearoa Asian communities. Her influential 2004 Landfall essay ‘Race You There’ was an early call upon Asians in Aotearoa to embrace their role as Tangata Tiriti, while her essay ‘Black Asian, White Asian: Racial histories and East Asian choices in the white settler state’ features in the landmark collection Towards a Grammar of Race in Aotearoa New Zealand (Lopesi, Sankar & Tecun, 2022). She has sporadically published poetry and fiction in various places, including Landfall, Sport and The Spinoff.
Kelly Ana Morey is an award-winning writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She has published five novels, as well as poems, numerous short stories, a childhood memoir and three social histories. Born in 1968 of Ngāti Kuri, Te Rarawa and Te Aupōuri descent, she spent much her childhood in Papua New Guinea. Her first novel Bloom (Penguin, 2003) won the Hubert Church First Fiction novel prize at the 2004 New Zealand Book Awards. Her second, Grace is Gone (Penguin, 2004) was a finalist for the Kiriyama Award for Fiction (USA). In 2005, she was the recipient of the inaugural Janet Frame Award for Fiction. Morey’s most recent novel, Daylight Second (2016), was a finalist in the NZ Heritage Awards and the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards in 2017. Morey wrote Service to the Sea, the Royal New Zealand Navy’s history, during her tenure as oral historian at the RNZN Museum. Morey’s poetry has appeared in Whetu Moana: Contemporary Poetry in English (2002). Her short fiction has been published in numerous anthologies, including Huia Short Stories (1997 and 2001); Black Marks on the White Page (2017); and Pūrākau: Māori Myths Retold by Māori Writers (2019). She has also been Highly Commended in the Open Division of the Katherine Mansfield Short Story competition and was third in the Open Division of the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards. She was recently awarded the 2023 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship.
Ronald Hugh Morrieson (1922–72) was a novelist and short story writer, who remained almost entirely in South Taranaki where he played in a dance band and taught music. Three of his novels and one novella were published, the latter being published accompanied by several short stories by Penguin in 1983. Four feature films based on his work have been released.
Paula Morris MNZM (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Whātua) is a novelist, short story writer, editor and essayist from Auckland. Much of her work explores issues of race, diaspora and displacement, and cities around the world as locations of transformation and transgression. An Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, where she directs the Master of Creative Writing, Paula is the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature; Wharerangi, the online Māori literature hub; and the Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books.
Carl Nixon is an award-winning short story writer, novelist and playwright. He has twice won the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition, and won the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition in 2007. His first book, Fish ‘n’ Chip Shop Song and other stories was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. He has had five novels published, including Rocking Horse Road, The Tally Stick and his latest, The Waters. The novels have been published internationally in the USA, the United Kingdom, China, France and Germany. His stage plays have been produced in every professional theatre in New Zealand.
Julian Novitz is an award-winning short story writer and novelist. Born in Christchurch, he currently lives in Melbourne. His first book, a collection of short stories called My Real Life and Other Stories, won the New Zealand Society of Authors Hubert Church Best First Book of Fiction Award (2005) and he has since published several novels. He won the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Award for Short Fiction in 2008, and was a recipient of the Buddle Findlay Frank Sargeson Residential Writing Fellowship in 2009. Novitz works as a senior lecturer in the department of Media and Communication at Swinburne University of Technology.
Sue Orr is the author of two novels and two short story collections. The collection Etiquette for a Dinner Party won the Lilian Ida Smith Award in 2007, and From Under the Overcoat was shortlisted for the NZ Post Book Awards 2012, and won the People’s Choice Award. In 2011, she was a Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellow. Sue teaches creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, and holds a PhD and Masters in Creative Writing from that university. In 2016, she established a creative writing programme for Women’s Refuge in Auckland. On moving to Wellington in 2018, she joined the Write Where You Are Charitable Trust to teach creative writing in Wellington prisons and women’s refuges. She lives in Wellington with her husband, Adrian Orr.
Vincent O’Sullivan is the author of three acclaimed novels: Let the River Stand, Believers to the Bright Coast and All This by Chance. He has written many plays and collections of short stories and poems, and several libretti. He was joint editor of the five-volume Letters of Katherine Mansfield, and has edited a number of major anthologies. He is the author of Long Journey to the Border: A Life of John Mulgan and the Ockham prize-winning The Light Is Dark Enough: Ralph Hotere. He was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2000 and was the New Zealand poet laureate for 2013–2015. He lives in Dunedin.
John Puhiatau Pule was born in Niue and moved to Auckland in 1964. He has published three novels and many poems. He also works as an artist: painting, drawing, printmaking, filmmaking and performing, his work appearing in the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. He has held various fellowships, and in 2004 received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award. In 2012 he was awarded an ONZM (Officer of the NZ Order of Merit) for services as an author, poet and painter. He now lives and works in Niue.
Sarah Quigley is a novelist, short story writer, critic, non-fiction writer, poet and columnist. She has a DPhil in Literature from the University of Oxford and is a graduate of Bill Manhire’s creative writing course. In 1998, she won the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. Her short stories and poetry have been widely broadcast and published, and she has won many prizes, including the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award and the Commonwealth Pacific Rim Short Story Award. Her publications include novels, short fiction, a creative writing manual and poetry collections, many of which have sold internationally. In 2000 she won the inaugural Creative New Zealand Berlin Residency. Since then she has divided her time between New Zealand and Berlin. Her novel The Conductor won the Booksellers Choice Award and was long-listed for the 2012 International IMPAC Award and shortlisted for the Prix Femina in France. More about Quigley’s work can be found on her website: www.sarahvquigley.com
Frazer Rangihuna (Ngāti Porou). ‘The first person to tell me I had the knack for anything good was the wonderful Mr Reynolds, my fifth form English teacher. In my school report he wrote: “Frazer has a distinct gift as a writer.” He also wrote I would be even better if I wasn’t so easily distracted. And after thirty-something more years of distraction, I’ve finally hit the 75,000-word mark for my first novel. I’m a self-taught writer of three published works. My story “Piro” was the winner of the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition in 2017. I live in Auckland with my dear partner Tim and I’m a professional teaching fellow in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland.’
Victor Rodger is a writer of Samoan and Scottish descent. His first play, Sons, debuted to critical acclaim in 1995. His most successful play, Black Faggot, has toured throughout New Zealand and Australia and had a successful season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2014. A former writer for Shortland Street, he also co-wrote the TV series This is Piki with Briar Grace Smith. ‘Like Shinderella’ was his first published short story and was written while he was the Robert Burns Fellow 2016 at the University of Otago.
Described as one of New Zealand’s greatest literary innovators and mentor to the literary community, Frank Sargeson (1903–1982) was a novelist, short story writer and playwright. He was born in Hamilton, trained as a solicitor and worked in Europe for several years before settling near Takapuna in Auckland, where he remained for the rest of his life. He published forty-seven stories, most between 1936 and 1954, and in these years he dominated New Zealand short fiction. Frank Sargeson became internationally known as the pioneer who broke from colonial literary traditions to an idiom that expressed the rhythms of everyday New Zealand speech to literature.
Tracey Slaughter is a poet and short story writer with six published works. She has received numerous awards, including the international Fish Short Story Prize 2020, the Bridport Prize 2014, and BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards in 2004 and 2001. She won the 2015 Landfall Essay Competition, and was the recipient of the 2010 Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Waikato, and edits the journals Mayhem and Poetry Aotearoa.
Karl (CK) Stead is a distinguished, award-winning novelist, literary critic, poet, essayist and emeritus professor of English at the University of Auckland. He was the New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2015–2017, has won the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction, and is a Member of the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour possible in New Zealand. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1995.
Bernard Steeds has twice won and once been shortlisted for the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award. His stories have also been commended in The Moth Short Story Prize, the Tākahe Short Story Competition and the Exposition Review Flash 405 competition. His work has appeared in the collection Water (Penguin Books, 2002) and in several anthologies including The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories.
Alice Tawhai is the pen-name of the author of three collections of short stories and a novel. She avoids photography, biography and all forms of personal advertisement.
Elsie Uini is a South Auckland teacher, writer and dumpling enthusiast. She is proud of her Samoan and Pākehā heritage and loves to incorporate aspects of her lived experience in her writing. She has a Bachelor degree in English and New Media Studies and Master’s of Education, and is passionate about sparking a love for literacy in the children she works with. When not working on her next writing project or teaching the future generations, Elsie enjoys reading and spending time with her dogs and family (in no particular order).
Peter Wells (1950–2019) was a writer of fiction and non-fiction, and a writer and director in film. His first book, Dangerous Desires, won the Reed Fiction Award, the New Zealand Book Award, and the PEN Best New Book in Prose in 1992. His memoir Long Loop Home won the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Biography, his novel Iridescence was runner-up in the 2004 Deutz Medal for Fiction and he won many awards for his work as a film director. He was the co-founder of the Auckland Writers Festival and subsequently he founded the samesame but different festival. In 2006, Wells was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature and film.
Albert Wendt is known as the ‘Forefather of Pacific Literature’, having published over twenty works, including poetry, short stories, novels, plays and creative non-fiction, plus he has edited a number of other volumes and been included in many anthologies and journals. He has received numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Asia Pacific Region, the Icon Award from the New Zealand Arts Foundation and both the NZ Order of Merit for Services to Literature and the Companion of the NZ Order of Merit. He is also an artist.
Judith White is the author of two novels — The Elusive Language of Ducks and Across the Dreaming Night — and a collection of short stories, Visiting Ghosts. Her stories have been broadcast by Radio New Zealand, and widely published in anthologies. She has been facilitating creative writing courses for over two decades and has worked as a writing mentor.
Alison Wong writes fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction. Her poetry collection Cup was shortlisted for the 2007 Jessie MacKay Best First Book for Poetry award, and in 2010 her novel As the Earth Turns Silver won the fiction prize at the New Zealand Post Book Awards and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards in Australia. She is co-editor of A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand (2021). In 2022 she held a State Library of Victoria Marion Orme Page Regional Fellowship to work on a memoir. She was born and raised in Te Mataua-Māui Hawke’s Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand, has lived most of her life in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and Pari-ā-Rua Porirua, and now lives in Djilang Geelong, Australia. ‘After her Father’ was the first story she submitted to a publisher.