Authors

Monika Killeen was born in 1976 in a small town in Slovakia. She left in 1995 to see the world beyond her country's borders. Discovering life as a young woman in London, she learned English while working as an au-pair. After twenty-six years in the UK and careers in law and psychotherapy, she migrated once again. She now lives on Waiheke Island off the north coast of New Zealand, with her husband, two children, and Rosie, the best dog in the world. An Inflammable Act of Kindness is her first novel.

Graci Kim is the award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author of Gifted Clans, a Korean mythology-inspired middle-grade series that was featured in TIME Magazine for Kids, praised as a "sparkling yarn" by Entertainment Weekly, and has been optioned for a television series by the Disney Channel. The Last Fallen Star was named a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Children's Book, an Amazon Best Book, an Indigo Best Book, a Barnes & Noble Young Reader Pick, and a Whitcoulls Kids Top 50. In 2022, Graci was awarded the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best New Talent. Before she became an author, Graci was a New Zealand diplomat and a cooking show host. She lives in Aotearoa New Zealand with her husband and daughter.

Graci Kim is a Korean-Kiwi diplomat turned author who writes about the magic she wants to see in the world. The Last Fallen Star was her middle grade debut, and there are two more Gifted Clans novels to come: The Last Fallen Moon and The Last Fallen Realm. In a previous life she used to be a cooking show host, and she once ran a business that turned children's drawings into plushies. When she's not lost in her imagination, you'll find Graci drinking flat whites, eating ramyeon, and most likely hugging a dog (or ideally, many). She lives in New Zealand with her husband and daughter.

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Carolyn M. King completed a DPhil on the ecology of British weasels in 1971, then moved to New Zealand to join the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research's Ecology Division as a scientist specialising in introduced predators. She edited the first edition of The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals in 1990, and the second in 2005. She taught zoology and conservation biology at Waikato University until 2018, where she continues writing full time as an Adjunct Professor. David M. Forsyth is a Senior Research Scientist at the NSW Department of Primary Industries, Orange, NSW, Australia. In 1997 he completed his PhD on the ecology and managementof Himalayan tahr and Alpine chamois in New Zealand's Southern Alps. Subsequently he has worked as a researcher in Canada, New Zealand and, since 2002, Australia. He maintains an active involvement in New Zealand mammalogy through collaborations with the Department of Conservation and Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research.

Rachel C. King is a registered nurse and physiotherapy consultant who lives in Auckland. She first published her memoir Surviving Centrepoint under the pseudonym Ella James in 2013. Her story is featured in the 2021 Warner Bros./TVNZ documentary Heaven and Hell which was directed by Natalie Malcon.

Rachael King is a writer, reviewer, former literary festival director and ex-bass player living in Tautahi Christchurch. She's the author of two novels for children: Red Rocks, which won the Esther Glen Medal, and The Grimmelings, published in 2024. Her adult novels, The Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall, were published in nine languages altogether. Red Rocks is currently in development for Sky TV by Libertine Pictures.Rachael received a Waitangi Day Honour Award in 2020 from the New Zealand Society of Authors for her work at WORD Christchurch bringing Behrouz Boochani to New Zealand. In 2023 she was named Best Reviewer at the Voyager New Zealand Media Awards.

Amanda King lives on a farm in Canterbury, New Zealand, and in between cooking for shearing gangs, and looking after her two small children, she runs a successful photographic print business online, called By the Horns. Her art prints are incredibly popular and sell all over the world.

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The late Michael King was one of New Zealand's leading historians. Over three decades he wrote or edited more than 30 books, most of them New Zealand history or biography. He won a wide range of awards for this work, including the New Zealand Book Award for Non-fiction, the Wattie Book of the Year (twice), the Montana Medal for Non-fiction and, in 2003, an inaugural Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. He was a contributor to the prestigious Oxford History of New Zealand and wrote for all five volumes of The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Dr King taught or held fellowships at seven universities in New Zealand and other countries, including Georgetown University in Washington DC, where he was Visiting Professor of New Zealand Studies. He was tragically killed in a car accident in 2004.