Authors

Bruce Ansley has spent much of his life in the South Island. He was raised in New Brighton, Christchurch, and has lived in Dunedin, Christchurch, the Marlborough Sounds and Golden Bay. He has grown up with the south's people, its cities, towns, rivers, mountains, bush and plains. He has picked tobacco in Motueka, been a commercial fisherman in Fiordland and a deer farmer on Banks Peninsula. He has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the south too. For almost a quarter of a century he was the Christchurch-based writer for the New Zealand Listener magazine, until he became a full-time author. As a writer, tramper and traveller, and being professionally nosey, he has poked into many corners of the island, although nowhere near all of them: he finds the south and its people endlessly fascinating. He now lives on Waiheke Island to be close to his family, but his heart remains in the south. Down South is his eleventh book.

James Antoniou is a Melbourne-based writer. He writes for both children and adults. For several years he worked for The Children's Bookshow, a UK-based theatre tour of children's writers and illustrators, which inspired him to write his own picture books. Nikki Slade Robinson has illustrated over sixty children's books and readers, including several for Duck Creek Press that she has written and illustrated, including the award-winning Muddle & Mo series and The little Kiwi series.

Hana Pera Aoake (Ngaati Mahuta, Tainui/Waikato, Ngaati Hinerangi) is an artist and writer based in Waikouaiti on stolen Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Waitaha lands. They are keen to restart the land wars and love eating kaimoana and defacing colonial property.

Andris Apse is one of New Zealand's leading landscape photographers. During a career spanning more than thirty years, he has won many major awards, and is acknowledged as one of the finest wilderness photographers in the world. His work has been reproduced in the New York Times, National Geographic, New Zealand Geographic, Time and Newsweek, among many other publications. Apse has also published an array of books, including the phenomenally successful New Zealand Landscapes, which has sold more than 150,000 copies, Pounamu- The Jade of New Zealand (with Russell Beck and Maika Mason), Spirit of the South, a stunning tribute to the South Island, and the pocket-sized Southern New Zealand Landscapes. In 2010, Apse was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM). He is also an Honorary Fellow of the New Zealand Professional Photographers Association and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers. He lives with his partner Lynne at Diamond Harbour, near Christchurch.

Te Awhina Rangimarie Arahanga lives and works in Kaikōura.

No biography

Terence Araneta has been dreaming up stories since he was seven. He lives in Auckland with his wife and two children. He tries his very best to get more writing done, but his kids always seem to find ways to pop into his office and type on the keybofdjadshfjhdsfkhehfnvk.

No biography

No biography

Jacinda Ardern was elected prime minister of New Zealand in 2017 at the age of thirty-seven and became the country's youngest prime minister in more than 150 years.