Authors

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Christina is a writer and professional proofreader living in the Waikato region of New Zealand. Four of her short stories have been published, one in a magazine and the others in anthologies produced by Page and Blackmore, Rangitawa Publishing and most recently in Fresh Ink: Voices from Aotearoa, produced by Cloud Ink Press. As well as being a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards, Christina’s first crime novel Into the Void was longlisted for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize for an unpublished novel.

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Maris O'Rourke is a former Secretary for Education for New Zealand and Director of Education for The World Bank. This is her sixthchildren's book. She lives and works in Mt Eden, Auckland with her wh?nau. Stephanie Huriana Fong (Te Rarawa, Te Hikut?, Te Aup?uri) isa graduate of Te Kura Kaupapa M?ori and Te Wharekura o Hoani Waititi Marae. She is a certified translator of te reo M?ori who also worksin television and other media. She and her sister Jen Martin are co-directors of their M?ori language consultancy, Pae T? Limited.Stephanie lives in West Auckland with her husband and their two tamariki. Visual artist, painter, printmaker, film director Claudia PondEyley was born in Matamata and attended schools in Montreal and New York. She returned to New Zealand to attend the Elam school ofFine Arts at the University of Auckland and continues to practise from her studio in Mt Eden, Auckland.

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Dr Annette O’Sullivan is a design academic and former senior lecturer in typography at Massey University’s School of Design.

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Vincent O’Sullivan was a poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright, and librettist. He was a prolific writer, and one of New Zealand’s best-known. A string of poetry and short story collections preceded his first full-length novel, Let the River Stand (1993), and since then he has written fiction, verse, plays, and librettos in turn. The recipient of many literary prizes and residencies, O’Sullivan was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship in 2004, and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2006. He served as New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2013-15. O'Sullivan passed away in April 2024. Alongside his creative writing, O’Sullivan is a distinguished editor, anthologist, essayist, and biographer. As an academic, he has taught nationally and internationally, receiving numerous visiting fellowships to overseas institutions such as Yale University. This academic history informed his emergence as a Mansfield scholar, beginning with the publication of Katherine Mansfield’s New Zealand in 1974, and asserted most recently in his co-editing of The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Katherine Mansfield: Volumes 1-4 (2016). He is the author of the John Mulgan biography Long Journey to the Border: A Life of John Mulgan (2003). Biography and photograph Vincent O'Sullivan.

MNZM, Poet, Painter, Essayist, Anthologist and Curator Awards: Arts Foundation Laureate 2012 Highlight: Poet, essayist, editor and artist Gregory O’Brien is a busy and energetic presence in both arts and literature within New Zealand. Born in Matamata, Gregory trained as a journalist in Auckland and worked as a newspaper reporter in Northland before returning to study art history and English at Auckland University. With one foot in the literary world, the other in the visual art realm, Gregory has been a prolific and busy presence on the cultural scene for nearly three decades. As Lara Strongman says " Greg O'Brien is one of New Zealand's most distinguished 'cultural odd job men'. As a curator, poet, novelist, art writer, and visual artist he makes major contributions to our culture. His great achievement is to uncover, and to bring into the light, the overlooked and undersung" His first major collection of poems and drawings, Location of the Least Person was published in 1987, followed by Dunes and Barns (1988) and Man with a Child's Violin (1990). In the early 1990s, two collections were published in Australia: Great Lake (1991), Malachi, (1993). The collection Days Beside Water, (1993) was co-published by Carcanet, in the UK, and Auckland University Press. Other collections (and a host of small press productions) ensued. Increasingly, during the 1990s, Gregory found himself writing about the visual arts. Lands and Deeds; Profiles of Contemporary New Zealand Painters (1996) kicked off a busy few years of art-writing and curating exhibitions. While holding a part-time position at City Gallery Wellington, he curated major exhibitions by Ralph Hotere, Rosalie Gascoigne, Colin McCahon, Fiona Hall, Laurence Aberhart, John Pule, Elizabeth Thomson and others. Presently, he is curator of the Graham Percy exhibition, which is touring the country until 2014, and he is a co-ordinator-participant in the ongoing 'Kermadec' art project. Welcome to the South Seas won the 2005 Non-Fiction Award at the NZ Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults Gregory's two books of art for young people, Welcome to the South Seas (AUP, 2004) and Back and Beyond (AUP, 2008) were widely acclaimed and picked up various awards. His other non-fiction books include After Bathing at Baxter's - Essays and Notebooks (VUP, 2002) and News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore (Carcanet/VUP, 2007). His picaresque novel with illustrations, Diesel Mystic (1989) has, by various accounts, gathered a cult following in recent years. For some years, Gregory taught a poetry paper at Victoria University of Wellington and, between 1999 and 2006, was a regular commentator on Kim Hill's radio programme. Among Gregory's other work is a collection of interviews with twenty-one New Zealand writers, Moments of Invention (1988, with photographs by Robert Cross), a monograph on the painter Nigel Brown (1991), and A Nest of Singing Birds; 100 Years of the School Journal (2007). With his partner, poet Jenny Bornholdt, he edited a collection of New Zealand love poems, My Heart Goes Swimming (1996) and The Colour of Distance New Zealand Writers in France, French Writers in New Zealand (2005). With Louis St John, he edited the bestselling Big Weather: Poems of Wellington (revised edition, 2009). Recent publications include A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy (2011), a collection of poems Beauties of the Octagonal Pool (2012) and a monograph on the painter Pat Hanly (2012). Gregory was awarded the Sargeson Fellowship (1988) and the writing fellow at Victoria University (1995). He was first winner of the Landfall Essay Competition Prize (1997); An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English which he edited with Jenny Bornholdt and Mark Williams, received the Montana Poetry Book of the Year award in 1997; Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance, (co-edited by Te Miringa Hohaia and Lara Strongman) was joint winner of the Montana Award for History and Biography at the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards; Welcome to the South Seas won the Non-Fiction Award at the 2005 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and the Elsie Locke Award at the 2005 LIANZA Children's Book Awards. As an artist, Gregory has held solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Auckland, Wellington and elsewhere. He has illustrated the work of other New Zealand writers - among them C. K. Stead, Elizabeth Smither, Bill Manhire, Michael King and Jenny Bornholdt. His artworks can be found on book covers in New Zealand, Australia, England, Germany, Holland and Russia. In 2012 he illustrated Kate De Goldi's novella, The ACB with Honora Lee, as well as his own book, Beauties of the Octagonal Pool. With his handprinter-brother Brendan, he has produced numerous small press editions bringing together poetry and art, by his own hand and by others. Residencia en la tierra, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 970 x 710mm Since 2008, he has made over 30 etchings with master printmaker Michael Kempson at Cicada Press, University of NSW, Sydney. He has also worked collaboratively with John Pule and Euan Macleod on ongoing series of etchings and paintings. Gregory has exhibited regularly at Bowen Galleries, Wellington, since 1990. In 2009, he exhibited 'For Maxwell Fernie I & II' at Peter McLeavey Gallery Wellington. He also held two solo shows at Jane Sanders Art Agent, Auckland. In October 2012 his work featured in the public art initiative 'Slot' in Redfern, Sydney. His art is included in the collections of the Hocken Library, Otago University, Dunedin; the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs collection; the University of Auckland Art Collection and the Chartwell Collection. As poet and visual artist, Gregory O'Brien has worked with Doris De Pont on a range of fashion garments (Winter 2006). Composers Helen Bowater, Gillian Whitehead and Ben Hoadley have set his poems to music. His poetry and art have also found their way onto ceramics, badges and even a mural in a school hall on Rapa Nui / Easter Island. Gregory received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2012. The Laureate Award is an investment in excellence across a range of art forms for an artist with prominence and outstanding potential for future growth. Their work is rich but their richest work still lies ahead of them. The Award recognises a moment in the artists' career that will allow them to have their next great success. In the same year, Gregory was the recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achivement for Non-fiction. At the end of 2013 Gregory was acknowledged in the New Year's Honour's list as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit and in May 2017 received an honorary doctorate at Victoria University of Wellington​. "Victoria University Chancellor Sir Neville Jordan says the honorary doctorate is an acknowledgement of Mr O’Brien’s ongoing contribution to, and celebration of, artistic life in New Zealand."

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Vyvean, and her partner Jeremy, moved to Waiheke Island in 1997. Jeremy established a vineyard, and Vyvean invited animals in. Greg Downie, a freelance illustrator and sculptor living on Waiheke Island, first met Fifi, Splotches and the gang two years ago, and has enjoyed drawing their adventures ever since.