Authors

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Jesse O (Author) Jesse O is the pseudonym for award-winning poet and author Jessica Le Bas. Her first poetry collection, Incognito (AUP 2007), won the Best First Book of Poetry Award at the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. A second collection, Walking to Africa (AUP 2009), which explored adolescent mental illness, was a finalist in the 2010 Ashton Wylie Book Awards. Her first novel for children, Staying Home (Puffin 2010) won a Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Award in 2011. In 2019, she won the prestigious Sarah Broome Poetry Prize for a sequence of poems described by the judge, Toronto Poet Laureate Anne Michaels, as 'alive with detail acutely observed'. Jessica Le Bas divides her time between Nelson, New Zealand and Rarotonga. Toby Morris (Illustrator) Toby Morris is an award-winning illustrator, comic artist and author of the successful non-fiction comic series The Side Eye on the Spinoff and The Pencilsword on RNZ. He has written several children's books including Capsicum, Capsi Go, The Day The Costumes Stuck, Don't Puke On Your Dad and the graphic novel Te Tiriti O Waitangi and developed artwork for musicians including The Beths, Beastwars, Neil and Liam Finn, Ladyhawke and Phoenix Foundation, and diverse brands including the Edmonds Baking Powder box! In 2020, his animated illustration collaborations with scientist Siouxsie Wiles explaining the Covid-19 pandemic were viewed and shared all over the world, leading to an ongoing gig with the WHO. He lives in Auckland.

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David Batchelor is an urban planner, designer and researcher. He holds a PhD in Architecture from Victoria University of Wellington and conducts research about urban and heritage governance. He was the founder of the regional festival Wellington Heritage Week. Bill McKay is a Senior Lecturer in architecture and planning at the University of Auckland. The author of two books on New Zealand architecture, including a history of state housing, he has contributed to many other publications, and provides regular media commentary on architecture and urban design issues.

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Elspeth Alix Batt has been an illustrator and fine artist for over thirty years and has illustrated many picture books, non-fiction books, book covers, cards, flags and school banners, not to mention innumerable School Journals, Ready to Reads and other educational resources for the NZ Ministry of Education. Love Bugs is her first book as a author/illustrator.

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Juliet Batten was born in Taranaki, where she grew up in Inglewood until the age of fourteen, when her family moved to Auckland. There she attended high school and university in Auckland, graduating with a PhD in English. She has taught English, Environmental Studies and Women's Studies at Auckland University, and was a director of the Queen Elizabeth National Trust for ten years. As an artist she has held many solo exhibitions and co-ordinated collaborative art projects. For twenty-eight years she worked as a Psychosynthesis (transpersonal) counsellor and psychotherapist with a strong focus on the spiritual dimensions of healing. She has offered workshops and courses in ritual, creativity and personal growth over many decades. Her work has now shifted to mentoring, creativity coaching and spiritual guidance through life transitions. She also offers online courses in ritual and sacred earth connection. She has followed a meditation path since 1983 and is a trained meditation teacher. Since 1985 she has celebrated the eight seasons of the year with her ritual group. Her published writing reflects her commitment to personal, community and spiritual well being, and her passion for reconnecting people with nature. Her books Celebrating the Southern Seasons and Dancing with the Seasons explore seasonal celebrations from European and Maori spiritual practices. For the last 12 years she has written her Seasons Newsletter to help her readers align their energies with the seasonal flow.

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