Authors

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Tony Chapelle has had a professional life as a historian, mainly in schools and universities in the South Pacific. Over the past few decades he has concentrated on creative writing, and has published Original Sin, a book of short stories, many of them award-winning, and a sequence of four novels for adults- Merely a Girl, The Youngest Son, A Distant Belonging, and Kindred. He lives in Palmerston North with his daughter and granddaughters. NZ Booklovers wrote of Kindred, his most recent work- 'This is a beautiful book from start to finish. It is polished and perfectly weighted . . . . So sad, and so beautifully captured by the writer.' He has been short-listed and won a number of New Zealand short story competitions and was awarded a NZ Society of Authors mentorship with Sue McCauley. Maurice Gee described the character of Chapelle's first novel as 'tough, energetic, frustrated, vulnerable and not always admirable. A thoroughly believable young woman.'

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Ian Chapman is an author, musician and senior lecturer in the School of Performing Arts at the University of Otago, Dunedin. Forever fascinated by twentieth-century popular culture, this is his eleventh book and definitely the most colourful yet.

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Janet Charman is one of New Zealand's sharpest and most subversive writers. In 2008 she won the Montana Book Award for Poetry for her sixth collection, Cold Snack. In 2009 she was a Visiting Fellow at the International Writers' Workshop of Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2014 she appeared as a Guest Reader at the Taipei International Poetry Forum. Her collection Surrender (2017, OUP) chronicles her writing residencies in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This is her ninth collection of poetry.

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Bruce Chatfield was an author, builder, painter, musician, world traveller, and follower of the teachings of the Buddha. Born on the shores of the Whangaroa Harbour in the far north of New Zealand, he was the quiet one, forever drawing, creating games, and going on mysterious travels in the bush across the road. In his thirties, after great personal tragedy, Bruce chose a life on the road and a path of meditation. Supported by his skills as a mural artist, sign writer, singer, and builder, he journeyed widely across Australia, North and Central America, Europe, Southeast Asia and India, spending years in monasteries and other sanctuaries. Bruce handwrote his novels in battered journals while on the road. Once memorably writing 14,000 words a day, ensconced at his table at the Garden Restaurant in the town of Puri, Orissa, India. He eventually settled after returning to New Zealand, finding peace and rest at Bodhinyanarama Buddhist Monastery in Stokes Valley near Wellington. He passed away in November 2022 shortly before this book went to print.

Li Chen was born in Beijing, China, and moved to New Zealand when she was five (with her parents, not as a solo child explorer, I don't think that's allowed). She's always loved drawing and has been working as a full-time comic artist since 2012. Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat is her first graphic novel. When she's not drawing, Li likes to hang out with her cats or go on really long walks. Oh, and she drinks a LOT of tea.