Authors

Growing up in Gore within sight of the Hokonuis, Ron Hay developed an early love of the hills and the wide open spaces. He became enthusiastically involved in tramping and climbing while doing postgraduate study in English literature at Otago University. Some years of secondary teaching followed, allowing generous amounts of holiday time for trips into the valleys and mountains of the Southern Alps. Ron then did a theology degree and entered the Anglican ministry. He was vicar of Temuka and then Sumner-Redcliffs in Christchurch before taking early retirement in order to devote time to writing. His first book, Finding the Forgotten God, won the Ashton Wyllie Book Award in 2015. Ron is a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club and has contributed articles to the NZ Alpine Journal and to Wilderness magazine. He is married to Liz and they have three children and seven grandchildren. They now live in Castle Hill Village surrounded by the peaks of the Torlesse and Craigieburn Ranges.

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RACHEL HAYDON is a qualified primary school teacher and scientist with a zoology degree and Master's in Marine Science. She has over 15 years' experience of teaching science to children of all ages in schools, museums, zoos and aquariums in Australia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She is committed to motivating children of all ages to get outside and explore, enjoy and protect the natural world. She is currently the General Manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand and responsible for ensuring that all the little penguins homed there behave themselves. She recently published The Nature Activity Book with Te Papa Press.

Olivia Hayfield is the pen name of NZ author and editor Sue Copsey. Her first adult novel Wife After Wife was published worldwide by Hachette, and in the US by Penguin Random House. She is also the author of award-winning children's books. Sue lives in Auckland.

Heather Haylock (Author) As a child, Heather Haylock could often be found reading a book while sitting on her horse, or perched way up high in a tree. Nowadays Heather loves the challenge of knitting words into stories. She is the author of Granny McFlitter the Champion Knitter, which was published in 2018, won a Storylines Notable Picture Book Award and also shortlisted for the Best Picture Book category of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. She has produced two more fabulous stories about her popular character, A Country Yarn and The Knit Before Christmas. Thanks to all her research for Granny McFlitter, Heather is also able to knit yarn into jumpers and other fun items, which often come along with her on her story readings. Lael Chisholm (Illustrator) Lael Chisholm has loved drawing ever since she was old enough to hold a pencil. After years of scribbling and doodling at school, home and any other place where a pen and paper was handy, she decided to call her scrawls art, and to share them with the world. She was the youngest ever winner of the Storylines Gavin Bishop Award for Illustration and has provided illustrations for the bestselling Granny McFlitter series by Heather Haylock, as well as other stories too. Nowadays she spends her free time drawing at her home in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Carl Joseph Hayman is a retired New Zealand rugby player who played at tighthead prop, making 45 appearances for the All Blacks. Hayman has previously played for the Otago Highlanders in Super Rugby, Newcastle Falcons in the English Premiership, and French side Toulon, where he captained the side to victory in the 2015 European championship. Hayman announced his retirement from professional rugby in January 2015, aged 35, having played 445 games of professional rugby. Post retirement Hayman has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy. He lives in Taranaki, New Zealand. Dylan Cleaver has spent the better part of three decades covering sport. Now the publisher of sports newsletter The Bounce, Cleaver has worked for mastheads such as the New Zealand Herald, Herald on Sunday, Sunday Star-Times, Sunday News and Irish Examiner, as well as contributing regularly to websites The Spinoff, Cricket Monthly and CODE Sports. Cleaver has won close to 40 national journalism awards, including Best Investigation at the Canon Media Awards in 2015 for his work on match-fixing allegations involving former New Zealand cricketers. He has been named Sports Journalist of the Year on multiple occasions, including 2022, where he was recognised in part for a feature article on Carl Hayman, and in 2017 for his groundbreaking work linking the high rates of dementia in former rugby players with head injuries suffered in their playing days. Cleaver was raised in New Plymouth and now lives on the North Shore of Auckland with his wife Michelle and two teenage children Liam and Libby.