Authors

Jenny Lynch is a former journalist whose colourful career in and out of magazines spanned more than thirty years and included work as an actress, photographic model, television production assistant and 'Bunny' at the Melbourne Playboy. She was educated at Epsom Girls' Grammar in Auckland, and in Moorhead Minnesota at Moorhead Senior High and Concordia College where she was an honour roll student. She then worked on a Canadian newspaper and in television in Australia. On her return to New Zealand in 1963 she joined the Weekly News, followed by the Sunday Herald and later Thursday magazine. Although principally a feature writer, she gained wide experience in other magazine roles. At various times she was a columnist, fashion writer, theatre critic, photo retoucher and layout designer. In 1977 she became assistant editor on the New Zealand Woman's Weekly and editor in1987. She led the magazine for seven years. Jenny Lynch is the author of three previous non-fiction books all published in association with the Woman's Weekly. She lives with her husband Gavin Ellis and cat Rufus in Auckland.

Bei Lynn is an award-winning artist who has illustrated around 20 picture books for children, some of which she has also written. Her illustrations are mainly made of watercolor and pencil and have been published in numerous magazines. Her first book, To Be Fish, was published in 1999, and the China Times has selected her books for its Best Children’s Book of the Year list several times.

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Claire Mabey is the founder of Verb Wellington, LitCrawl Wellington and L?emis. She is also books editor at The Spinoff, book critic at RNZ and co-curator of the writers' programme at the Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts.

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Bren MacDibble was raised on farms all over New Zealand, backpacked the world in her twenties, stopped off in Australia on the way home and stayed. She lived in Melbourne for twenty years, then travelled Australia living and working in a bus, and now runs holiday villas on the stunning coral coast of Western Australia. In 2018, How to Bee - her first novel for younger readers - won the Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers, the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature, and the New Zealand Book Awards Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. In 2019 The Dog Runner won the New Zealand Book Awards Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. Across the Risen Sea (2020) was shortlisted for multiple awards and nominated for a CILIP Carnegie medal. The Raven's Song (2022), co-written with Zana Fraillon, was an Honour Book for the CBCA Award for Younger Readers. Bren also writes for young adults under the name Cally Black.