Authors

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Alice Taylor was a MasterChef New Zealand star in 2022. She has a Master of Politics with Distinction from the University of Otago. Alice has worked as a pastry chef at top restaurants Baduzzi and Amisfield. She's now a food writer, works as a pastry chef at Paris Butter and plans to open her own baking business.

Cliff Taylor is an author and journalist who has lived and worked in numerous places around the world. He was born on Auckland's North Shore and later grew up on a small dairy farm at Makarau, attending Mahurangi College in Warkworth. He completed the journalism course at Auckland Technical Institute (now AUT) and began his journalistic career aged 17 as a reporter on the Auckland Star. Cliff has travelled widely, sailing around Indonesia and Borneo, riding an old Enfield motorcycle 7000km around India, trekking to the source of the Ganges, buying an olive grove in Spain, living in Barcelona and Brighton, and working as a freelance journalist in Uganda. He has written for a variety of publications including UK daily The Independent, various newspapers in Africa, the Herald on Sunday and the Sunday Star-Times. He also worked as a journalist and producer for eight years at the BBC World Service in London and Africa. The Spanish Garden is his fourth novel. Cliff enjoys trail running, walking in the mountains, and gardening, and is a keen forager for wild food. He currently lives in Baddeleys Beach on the Tawharanui Peninsula.

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Andrea Taylor lives in Nelson New Zealand. From a young age the word alternative was used by those around her to describe her - unsure of what that meant she carried on being curious and questioning much of what was being presented to her. She attended University to study Psychology, Education and Sociology with the view of becoming an Educational Psychologist. Early on in her university study she realised that university was a lot like school and she was still being told what to think rather than how to think. She left University with a Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences and a few papers towards a Masters. Since then she has formally studied Yoga and continues to follow a Yogic path today. She has worked a variety of roles, mainly involving supporting people on their career and life pathways. Many of these roles she did while home-schooling and raising her two children. She values nature and all animals, personal peace and social justice, health and wellness and uses prevention of illness practices to stay well. Andrea has been a vegetation for almost 40 years, largely eating an organic raw, fruit, vegetable and nut based diet. She grows a lot of her own food. She walks in nature daily. She questions and researches and tends to look beyond the veil that society has drawn, to review the value and place of much what is considered the norm and 'right'. She believes that true education and what it is to be human involves consciousness and being truly present, and without that consciousness; past and present affects future, personal choice and freedoms. She considers herself a student of life. Self-awareness, self-responsibility, humility, graciousness, compassion and wholeness are qualities she works to develop.

Fa'afetai Ta‘asē was born on 8 July 1965, the son of Vaotupu and Levine Ta'asē. The family lived in Cannons Creek and was well known in Porirua, contributing to the community as teachers, church leaders and artists. Fa‘afetai had cerebral palsy and spent his early years in and out of hospital. Porirua was his home, and he was educated there and in Wellington. Fa‘afetai started out as a performance poet in the 1980s. His work explores themes of identity, family, love, faith and politics with a New Zealand-born Pacific lens. He writes with a sharp eye and a warm heart. Fa‘afetai died unexpectedly in October 2022. He was laid to rest with his parents at Whenua Tapu Cemetery just outside Porirua.

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