Authors

No biography

Shaun Johnson played 268 NRL matches, including over 220 for the New Zealand Warriors, and represented the Kiwis 35 times in a remarkable career that spanned more than a decade at the highest level of professional sport. During that time, he earned a reputation as one of the most exciting players in rugby league and amassed numerous accolades, including the prestigious Golden Boot Award in 2014. Off the field, Shaun is the host of the League Lounge with Shaun Johnson on Sky TV, co-host of the Play On Sports Show podcast, features on Fox Sports and Sky TV coverage and is the father of two daughters with his wife Kayla.

Jill Johnson has lived in South-East Asia, Europe and New Zealand. She obtained a B.A. Degree in Landscape Design. She has previously owned an editorial cartoon gallery, a comic shop and has been involved in a graphic novel publishing house. She is a Faber Academy graduate and now lives in Brighton with her children. Jill's writing is inspired by her Māori heritage. https://jilljohnsonwrites.com

No biography

Stephanie Johnson is the author of several collections of poetry and of short stories, some plays and adaptations, and many fine novels. The New Zealand Listener commented that 'Stephanie Johnson is a writer of talent and distinction. Over the course of an award-winning career - during which she has written plays, poetry, short stories and novels - she has become a significant presence in the New Zealand literary landscape, a presence cemented and enhanced by her roles as critic and creative writing teacher.' 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. The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature describes Johnson's writing as 'marked by a dry irony, a sharp-edged humour that focuses unerringly on the frailties and foolishness of her characters . . . There is compassion, though, and sensitivity in the development of complex situations', and goes on to note that 'a purposeful sense of . . . larger concerns balances Johnson's precision with the small details of situation, character and voice that give veracity and colour'.

No biography

No biography

No biography

No biography

Stephen Johnson is an Australian-born writer, journalist, TV producer, kayaker and traveler who now plots thrillers in Auckland, New Zealand. His debut novel, Tugga's Mob, was inspired by three seasons working as a tour guide and driver on double decker buses around Europe in the '80s. Tugga's Mob was a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel. The second crime fiction novel, Boxed, was published in November 2021 and is set in the world of animal rights activism and the Melbourne media. Both books are published by Clan Destine Press. Stephen's first historic novel, Peace Stick, goes behind the Iron Curtain during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It features two East German schoolgirls dealing with a world on the edge of a nuclear abyss. One of the former students now lives in Auckland, where Peace Stick will be published in October to mark the 60th anniversary.

Andrew Johnston was born in 1963 and grew up in the Hutt Valley. Since 1997 he has lived in France. After more than 25 years as a journalist, he is now a trainer and consultant for the United Nations and non-government groups. He is the author of five previous collections of poems, including How to Talk, which won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry and the New Zealand Society of Authors Best First Book Award, and most recently Fits & Starts, which won the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for Poetry.