Authors

Rushi Vyas was born in Toledo, Ohio. He is co-author (with Rajiv Mohabir) of the chapbook Between Us, Not Half a Saint (GASHER Press, 2021) and his poem ‘Morning Chant: Scatter’ was republished as a broadside by the Center for Book Arts (US). He earned his MFA from the University of Colorado-Boulder and his BSc from the University of Michigan. His poems have been published in US journals including Adroit Journal, The Georgia Review, Indiana Review, The Offing and Tin House, and in NZ in Landfall and The Spinoff. In 2019, Rushi moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Ōtepoti Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand, where he now lives. Rushi is completing a PhD at the University of Otago and teaches on the university’s Creative Writing programme.

No biography

Carly lives in Christchurch New Zealand with her little people, husband and fish. Originally from Lincoln, United Kingdom, she moved to New Zealand in 2009, and despite earthquakes, fires and the challenges of a pandemic, they still love to call New Zealand home. She has been twisting words into stories and poetry since she was little, and had her first poem published, a unusual tale of a bee, when she was 8. Since then she has had many poems published in anthologies and pamphlets. Despite writing for almost three decades, it is only in the last 18 months that she has truly given herself permission to spend time writing. The stories Carly tells are never restrained by reality, but instead aim to question what we know. She likes to seed endless possibilities for the reader to question and run away with.

No biography

Wade Doak is a natural history photographer and author of world renown, respected for his documentation of New Zealand's marine life.

Wade Doak is a natural history photographer and author of world renown, respected for his documentation of New Zealand's marine life.

No biography

Philip Waechter was born in 1968 in Germany. He now lives as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator in Frankfurt am Main.In 1999 Philip and Moni Port co-founded the community studio LABOR.

No biography

Kelsey Waghorn was born in Palmerston North and grew up in Whakatane on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. She was still in high school when she discovered a passion for the sea and everything in it and on it. She gained a diploma in marine science and a degree in biological sciences and when, after graduating, she was offered a job taking tourists around Whakaari White Island she accepted so she could spend the summer on the sea going back and forth to the island. Five years and one day later she was still in the job. But that was the day her whole life changed... On 9th December 2019, Whakaari White Island erupted, killing 22 people and severely injuring most of the others on the island at the time - Kelsey being one of them. She received full thickness burns to 45% of her body, and has since undergone 17 surgeries, and hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of rehab. She considered the physical part of her recovery the hardest thing she'd ever done, until the mental side of things kicked off. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) a year or so after the eruption, she battled flashbacks, hypervigilance, panic attacks, fear, depression, dissociation, isolation and more. Her book Surviving White Island tells her story and how she managed to find the help she so desperately needed. After a lot of work and a lot of healing, she is now living life to the fullest.