Authors

No biography

As a Platoon Commander during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland, Brian was badly injured when 15lbs of high explosive detonated a metre behind him. Miraculously healed by prayer, he is now the Director of Charisma Christian Ministries, Auckland, New Zealand. See www.charisma.org.nz Brian wrote, Against the Gates of Hell, which has since been republished as Clash of the Kingdoms. See www.brianfrance.co.nz Brian France's personal story is included in Radical Lives Vol 1 by Janet Balcombe, see www.wildsidepublishing.com/buy-books/radical-lives-1

New Zealand novelist and poet Ruth France was born in Leithfield, North Canterbury, New Zealand in 1913. She published two novels: The Race (1958), which won the New Zealand Literary Fund’s Award for Achievement, and Ice Cold River (1961); and two volumes of poetry: Unwilling Pilgrim (1955) and The Halting Place (1961), under the pseudonym Paul Henderson. She had completed a third manuscript of poetry and was working on a third novel when she died in 1968.

Nicola ‘Niki’ Francis is a Pākehā New Zealander of English, German and Scottish origins. She has lived in the UK, Iraq, Germany, Belgium and Australia and now lives between the sea and the bush in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Prior to doing her PhD on which this biography is based, she worked for human rights and conservation NGOs, as parish minister and hospice chaplain. Niki worked for the Australian Dictionary of Biography and contributed to it as an author, and for Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau, the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. In Canberra she was a member of the Australian Women’s Archive Project, contributing multiple entries and essays to the online Australian Women’s Register.

Malcolm Francis has spent more than 50 years scuba diving and exploring the seas around New Zealand and the South Pacific Ocean. He was Principal Scientist for Inshore and Pelagic Fisheries at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research until his retirement in 2020. He has authored four previous editions of 'Coastal Fishes of New Zealand', co-authored 'Sharks and Rays of New Zealand', and was the co-editor of the Montana Book Awards finalist 'The Living Reef: The Ecology of New Zealand's Rocky Reefs'

No biography

Barbara Francis’ previous book was: You Do Not Travel in China at the Full Moon, Agnes Moncrieff’s Letters from China, 1930-1945, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2017. That book was written as a result of winning the 2009 New Horizons for Women Trust Peg Hutchison Research Award. Barbara Francis has worked as a Museum Education Officer at the Dominion Museum in Wellington, teaching about the Māori Collection, and as a school teacher.

Francis Payne and Ian Smith are New Zealand's foremost cricket statisticians and have been editing the Cricket Almanack for many years. Payne, in particular, is well known to all cricket followers. He is a regular guest on both radio and television as well as fulfilling the role as chief statistician for New Zealand Cricket.

Francis Payne and Ian Smith are New Zealand's foremost cricket statisticians and have been editing the Cricket Almanack for many years. Payne, in particular, is well known to all cricket followers. He is a regular guest on both radio and television as well as fulfilling the role as chief statistician for New Zealand Cricket.  

Ed Franck is one of Belgium’s most important and innovative children’s writers. He writes for all ages and in all genres: from songs for toddlers to YA novels, detective stories and poetry. He has twice won the prestigious Cultuurprijs of the Flemish Community for Youth Literature.Thé Tjong-Khing is a children’s book illustrator based in the Netherlands. He was born in Indonesia, attended the Seni Rupa Arts Institute in Bandung, and moved to the Netherlands in 1956. Thé has won the Golden Pencil Award (a major Dutch children’s book award) three times and the Woutertje Pieterse Prize for Best Dutch Children’s Book and was nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize.

Suzanne Frankham is a Melbourne based writer who loves nothing more than sitting hunched over her computer planning a murder or two (all so far confined to fiction). In a number of prize-winning short stories, she has managed to dispatch an annoying bean-counter on a tropical island reef, a dog that had a penchant for a tasty meal of eastern bettongs, a sweet old lady in a rest home (collateral damage) and a self-obsessed artist. A vexatious raven escaped death, unfortunately not so the raven hater. In her debut novel Shadow Over Edmund Street, she has significantly upped the body count, as close-held secrets are revealed in the harbour city of Auckland, her one-time hometown.

Craig Franklin is a professor in zoology in the School of Biological Sciences , The University of Queensland, Australia. He has made more than 30 trips to Antarctica, including ten research expeditions as part of the New Zealand Antarctic Programme. He has published over 260 scientific works, including papers in journals Nature, Science and Nature Climate Change. His research focuses on how animals such as fish, frogs and crocodiles can survive and function in extreme and hostile environments. Peter Carey is a zoologist and educational tourism consultant who has worked in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1983. He has conducted research as a scientist with the New Zealand Antarctic Programme and the Australian Antarctic Program, and worked as an expedition leader and lecturer on many Antarctic cruise ships. Peter is the director of the SubAntarctic Foundation for Ecosystems Research (www.subantarctic.com), a non-profit conservation organisation that is improving wildlife habitat in the Falkland Islands, and a Global Fellow of the Polar Institute of the Wilson Center. Craig Franklin is a professor in zoology in the School of Biological Sciences , The University of Queensland, Australia. He has made more than 30 trips to Antarctica, including ten research expeditions as part of the New Zealand Antarctic Programme. He has published over 260 scientific works, including papers in journals Nature, Science and Nature Climate Change. His research focuses on how animals such as fish, frogs and crocodiles can survive and function in extreme and hostile environments. Internationally he is recognised as a leading proponent of the emerging field of conservation physiology, and several of his research projects assess the impact of human-induced environmental change on animals. His Antarctic research has looked at the impact of temperature increases on the physiology and survival of fish. He is a strong advocate of wildlife conservation and spends his annual holidays lecturing on cruise boats about the Antarctic ecosystem and its spectacular wildlife.