I was born in Dublin, Ireland, and studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. In 2015, I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate o…
Born in Huntly, she holds a PhD in New Zealand history from the University of Waikato. Challinor has worked as a fulltime writer and historian since 2000.
Emily Perkins is a writer of contemporary fiction, and the success of her first collection of stories, not her real name and other stories, established her early on as an important writer of her gener…
Catherine Chidgey is a novelist and short story writer whose work has been published to international acclaim. In a Fishbone Church won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Common…
Damien Wilkins writes fiction, and he has published short stories, novels, and poetry. His writing has been described as ‘exuberant and evocative, subtle and exact, aware of its own artifice yet relis…
Laurence Fearnley is an award-winning novelist. Her novel The Hut Builder won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards and was shortlisted for the international 2010 Boardman Tasker Prize …
Barbara Else is a playwright and fiction writer, and has also worked as a literary agent, editor and fiction consultant. Else won the Victoria University Writer’s Fellowship in 1999, and was made a Me…
Louise Wallace is the author of four collections of poems, and the novel Ash. She is the founder of Starling, an online journal publishing the work of young writers from Aotearoa, and the editor of Ōr…
Samantha Harvey has completed postgraduate courses in philosophy and in Creative Writing. In addition to writing, she has traveled extensively and taught in Japan and has lived in Ireland and New Zeal…
Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings is Tina Makereti’s first novel. Her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa (Huia Publishers 2010), won the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards Fiction Prize 2011. …
Rachel Joyce has written over 20 original afternoon plays for BBC Radio 4, and major adaptations for both the Classic Series, Woman's Hour and also a TV drama adaptation for BBC 2. In 2007 she won the…
Hannah Kent's first novel, the international bestseller, Burial Rites (2013), was translated into 30 languages and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award. …
Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher. She currently lectures in creative writing and comparative literature in the Netherlands. Her essay on Dutch identity and Jewishness, On (Not) Reading Anne…
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Nelson in 1982, raised in Waimangaroa and has returned there to live with her family. She worked as a reporter for The News in Westport.
The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern was elected the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand at the age of thirty-seven, becoming the country’s youngest Prime Minister in more than 150 years. Since lea…
Emma Espiner (née Wehipeihana) is a New Zealand broadcaster and political commentator. In 2020, she won Opinion Writer of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.