Authors

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Jill Bevan-Brown is a former lecturer in Inclusive Education. She retired in 2014 to care for her husband Winston, who has advanced Lewy Body Dementia. They live in Palmerston North. Trish Bowles is a Christchurch-based freelance artist who has illustrated more than 30 books, including Home Child (Oratia, 2019). Mahaki Bevan-Brown is a Maori language teacher at Mana Tamariki Kura Kaupapa Maori in Palmerston North.

Mike Beveridge was captain of his school’s First Fifteen and went on to a long rugby career which included several representative honours. He received a Master of Arts with First Class Honours from the University of Canterbury. In 1975, with a friend, he started The Everyman Book and Record Shop in Nelson, which traded successfully for almost forty years. He has lived in Palmerston North, Featherston, Napier, Hastings, Upper Hutt, Wellington, Wanganui, Auckland, Nelson, Christchurch, and Whangamatā, where he currently lives.

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Martin van Beynen is an award-winning writer and journalist for The Press and stuff.co.nz. He is the author of Trapped- Remarkable Stories of Survival from the 2011 Canterbury Earthquake, Penguin, 2012. He was awarded Fairfax Media Journalist of the Year 2010-2011, Senior Reporter of the Year and Senior Newspaper Feature Writer of the Year in the 2012 Canon Media Awards, and the 2013 Wolfson Fellowship to Cambridge University. In the 2010 Qantas Media Awards he won the Story of the Year award for a feature after the trial and acquittal of David Bain and also wrote and voiced the top-rating podcast Black Hands. He lives in Christchurch.

Claire Beynon is an artist, writer and interdisciplinary researcher living in Otepoti Dunedin. Her poetry, flash fiction and short stories have been widely published and anthologised, and she has won or been shortlisted for a number of awards including winning the Takahe Monica Taylor Poetry Prize in 2021 for 'Today's Sky'. She works in collaborative partnerships with scientists, composers, artists and writers around the globe, and two summer research seasons in Antarctica continue to inform her work. Her first collection was Open Book: Poetry & Images.

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Niki Bezzant is a multi-award-winning New Zealand writer, journalist, editor and commentator who has built a reputation for translating complex health and science jargon into easy-to-understand information for everyone over more than 20 years. She founded and edited Cuisine online and as founding editor, took Healthy Food Guide magazine from indie start-up to New Zealand's top-selling food magazine, a position it held for over a decade. Formerly the editor of Thrive magazine, she is a frequent contributor to New Zealand's top print, online and broadcast media including the NZ Listener, RNZ, Good magazine and Newstalk ZB. A trusted advocate and sought-after speaker on menopause/perimenopause and midlife health for women, Niki is passionate about women's health, especially empowering midlife women to become 'vibrant, kick-ass old ladies'. Her first, and bestselling, menopause guide This Changes Everything was published by Penguin Random House in 2022.

Clarke Gayford knew he wanted to be a fisherman before he was 10 years old and had memorized all the Latin, Maori and English names of the fish of the Gisborne, New Zealand coastline he called his backyard. In a 15-year career as a successful television and radio host, Clarke created the cult-status Otago University student television chronicle Cow TV and fronted a variety of high-profile travel, entertainment and music shows before responding to the call of the sea and quite literally diving back into it in his mid-30s to front Fish Of The Day. An active advocate of 'spare fishing' over 'spear fishing', Clarke is passionate about connecting people to the ocean. Clarke is the partner of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and father to daughter Neve, and lives in Auckland. Mike Bhana is a celebrated documentary director, cameraman and writer dedicated to the ocean and ocean conservation. During his 23 years in the television industry, he has produced, directed and shot over 60 hours of natural history documentaries and prime-time material for channels like Discovery, Animal Planet and National Geographic, including 28 films specifically about sharks. His documentary work has resulted in more than a dozen international awards for excellence. While he has a special love of the ocean, Mike has also travelled the world with the Red Cross, documenting the work of its teams in some of the most dangerous and stricken areas of the planet and more recently co-founded Sea Aid, a not-for-profit organisation aimed at supporting the Pacific Islands achieve better health outcomes. Mike lives on the Coromandel Peninsula with his family where he has been known to effortlessly whip out a kingie and a couple of crayfish before breakfast (sustainably of course). That's if the surf isn't calling.

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