Authors

Rachel Kerr is a Wellington writer who lives in Island Bay with her family. She is studying te reo Māori and has degrees in film and creative writing. Rachel has worked as a librarian for Te Kooti Whenua Māori and Judicial Libraries. Victory Park is her first novel.

Ulrika Kestere is a photographer, illustrator and graphic designer based in Lund, Sweden. Her first children’s book was translated into multiple languages, and Otto Goes North is her second book. Kestere was born in Latvia. She loves the outdoors and the rough Scandinavian weather, and Norway’s Lofoten islands inspire many of her illustrations.

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Jacquie Kidd, Ngapuhi, is a nurse by training and a researcher at heart. She has spent decades examining inequities and racism in the health system and uses story and poetry to bring whanau voices to the forefront of cancer care and research. A professor of Maori health at the Auckland University of Technology, Jacquie has a clinical background in nursing and almost two decades of expertise in whanau-focused Maori health equity research. Her research has concentrated on kaupapa Maori projects that have gathered whanau stories to help develop solutions to health inequities. Significant projects that Jacquie has worked on include health literacy for Maori in palliative care; Oranga Tu, on prostate cancer for tane Maori; and Ha Ora, on improving early diagnosis of lung cancer for Maori. Her current work includes lung cancer screening for Maori, whanau hauora assess ment in the cancer pathway and anti-racism practice in healthcare. She is a trustee and co-chair of Hei Ahuru Mowai, the Maori Cancer Leadership group, and a keynote speaker at the World Indigenous Cancer Conference in Aotearoa in 2026. Jacquie lives in Ahuriri Napier with her husband and two dogs, just a short drive from her five mokopuna.

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Fiona Kidman is a leading contemporary novelist, short story writer and poet. Much of her fiction is focused on how outsiders navigate their way in narrowly conformist society. She has published a large and exciting range of fiction and poetry, and has worked as a librarian, producer and critic. Kidman has won numerous awards, and she has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and other significant honours, as well as being a consistent advocate for New Zealand writers and literature. She was awarded an OBE and a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature. In May 2019 at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, Kidman won the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for her novel This Mortal Boy.

No biography

Fiona Kidman is a leading contemporary novelist, short story writer and poet. Much of her fiction is focused on how outsiders navigate their way in narrowly conformist society. She has published a large and exciting range of fiction and poetry, and has worked as a librarian, producer and critic. Kidman has won numerous awards, and she has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and other significant honours, as well as being a consistent advocate for New Zealand writers and literature. She was awarded an OBE and a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature. In May 2019 at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, Kidman won the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for her novel This Mortal Boy. Bio and photo courtesy of Read NZ.

Paul Kilgour is one of the New Zealand backcountry's most famous names. He grew up in Northland during the 1950s and 1960s, when swaggies still wandered the backroads. When he shouldered his first tramping pack at age 21, he experienced a revelation, and knew he'd be doing this for the rest of his days. Kilgour has also had a lifelong obsession with baches, cribs and huts, and he is among the top hut-baggers of New Zealand. In 2007 and 2008, Kilgour walked the length of the South Island, an epic 1550-kilometre tramp from Fiordland to Golden Bay via backcountry huts and off-track routes. He lives near Takaka, Golden Bay, with his partner, Janet.

Ian Kilgour is a Salvation Army Officer and Christian minister with wide experience in pastoral care and the very human issues we all struggle with. Now retired he remains actively involved in church, chaplaincy, community, and social justice issues. Ian believes that everyone has the capacity to find meaning in life and to deepen their spirituality by knowing their inner sacred self and enjoying intimate relationship with the Transcendent Source of all life. He has an inclusive understanding of life in which everyone and everything is interconnected, belongs and is of immense value. Ian dedicates this book to those to whom he has had the privilege of offering pastoral care and who taught him so much.