Authors

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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Carlos Biggemann was born in Bolivia and has lived in the coastal city of Dunedin, New Zealand since 2006. His passion for photography began as he experimented with light and movement while still at high school. Following his passion, he obtained a Certificate in Digital Photography at Aoraki Polytechnic in 2012. Carlos’ photographic career includes acting as Special Olympics official photographer at regional and international Special Olympics competitions. Carlos was also an official photographer at the National Down Syndrome Achievement Award ceremony held in Wellington at the Parliament House. He was an accredited photographer at the Carnaval de Oruro in Bolivia, and a photographer for noted New Zealand milliner Lindsay Kenneth for his hat fashion show, and appointed photographer for the book A Passion for Fashion, a biography of Lindsay Kenneth by Hilary Hunt. Carlos presented five exhibitions, three in Bolivia and two in New Zealand. Carlos’s work was recognised internationally in the My Perspective Contest in London. In 2014 his photograph “Spread Your Wings Little One” was a nominated finalist among close to 300 images submitted. In 2015 his photograph “A Journey Never Ends” was one of 25 shortlisted images out of more than 250 submissions. In 2016 his photograph “Colours of Fire” was awarded second place, and with the same image Carlos was the first recipient of the Stephen Thomas award — the prize was delivered in London by Dame Judi Dench. In 2018 his photograph “Autumn Trees” won the People’s Choice award, and in 2020 his photograph “Snowy Morning” was Finalist. At the World Down Syndrome Congress in July 2018 in Glasgow, UK, Carlos delivered a presentation entitled “Down Syndrome is not a disability, disability is not to try.” In 2021 Attitude Pictures made a documentary about Carlos, his life and photography, and the development of the book CUMULUS: an anthology of skies. Carlos lives with his whole heart.

Miro Bilbrough is a writer and filmmaker who grew up in New Zealand and lives in Australia. Her poetry chapbook Small-time spectre was published by Kilmog in 2010, and she has a Creative Doctorate of Arts in screenwriting and screen studies from the Writing and Research Centre, Western Sydney University. Her critically acclaimed feature films are Being Venice (2012), which premiered at Sydney Film Festival, and Floodhouse (2004). Excerpts and trailers, as well as her six-minute ciné-poem Urn (1995), can be viewed at www.mirobilbrough.com