Authors

Doc Drumheller was born in Charleston, South Carolina and has lived in New Zealand for more than half his life. He has worked in award-winning theatre and music groups and has published ten collections of poetry. His poems have been translated into more than twenty languages, and he has performed in Cuba, Lithuania, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Japan, India, China, Nicaragua, USA, Mexico, El Salvador, and widely throughout NZ. During his travels he represented the Waimakariri District as a Cultural Ambassador to Enshi, China, in a Sister City Cultural Exchange, was appointed as the New Zealand Director of the Silk Road Poetry Project, and represented New Zealand at several international poetry festivals in China and India. Doc Drumheller lives in Oxford, where he edits and publishes the literary journal Catalyst. His most recent collection is Election Day of the Dead, Seventy Haiku from the Americas (Cold Hub Press, 2020). Liang Yujing is a Chinese poet, translator and scholar who writes in both English and Chinese. He was born in Changde and studied for his BA and MA in Wuhan. From 2014 to 2020, he lived in New Zealand and completed his PhD in Chinese literature at Victoria University of Wellington. In late 2020, he returned to China and started working as a lecturer at Hunan University of Technology and Business. His poems and translations have appeared in over seventy literary magazines across the world, including Landfall,  Poetry NZ, Sport and takahē in NZ. His books of translation from Chinese into English include Zero Distance: New Poetry from China (Tinfish Press, 2017) and Dai Weina’s Loving You at the Speed of a Snail Traveling around the World (Cold Hub Press, 2018). He is also the Chinese translator of Best New Zealand Poems 2014 (Wai-te-ata Press, 2016) and Kim Addonizio’s What Is This Thing Called Love (Beijing: Xiron Books, 2020).

J. W. Du

Isaac du Toit is a New Zealand artist, author and illustrator of picture books. From a young age Isaac has been creating books (often collaborating with friends and family). Since 2020 Isaac has been increasingly experimenting with the medium of handmade dioramas in his art and illustration.

Maurice Dubey and John Burns have extensive experience working with businesses to successfully implement digital workforces and automated processes. Together they offer more than 50 years of insights and learnings in commercial strategy, technology implementation, and business growth. They have worked with leading organisations across multiple countries and sectors, and are thought leaders when it comes to utilising technology to achieve business improvement

Claude K. Dubois was born in Belgium. She has published nearly eighty children’s books for which she has received several awards. She is also a sculptor and painter.

Avi Duckor-Jones trained as a lawyer before gaining his MA in creative writing from Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters in 2013. His travel writing has been published with BBC Travel, The NZ Listener and Lonely Planet, among others. Avi has worked as a writing instructor and trip leader for National Geographic, directed a school in Ghana, and is the winner of the reality television competition Survivor New Zealand. His first book, Swim, won the 2018 Viva la Novella award. He currently lives on Waiheke Island with his wife and two children, where he enjoys open-water distance swimming and works as an English Teacher at Waiheke High School.

Sam Duckor-Jones is a sculptor and poet. In 2017 he won the Biggs Poetry Prize from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. His first book was People from the Pit Stand Up (VUP, 2018).

Alan and Justin have known each other for a

TESSA DUDER trained as a journalist and has published more than forty works of fiction, non-fiction and anthologies for both children and adults. Her debut novel Night Race to Kawau (1982), recently re-issued in a 40th anniversary edition, was followed by the classic young adult novel Alex (1987) published in five languages and adapted for a 1993 movie. Recent works include biographies of Margaret Mahy, Sir Peter Blake and Auckland's pioneering 'First Lady' Sarah Mathew. Her latest is about the charting of New Zealand by James Cook and in 2019 the four Alex books were published as Alex the Quartet. Her awards include a number of children's fiction prizes, the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, an Artists to Antarctica award, the OBE and in 2021 the CNZM. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Waikato and won the 2020 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (Fiction) She serves on the board of the Storylines Children's Literature Trust of New Zealand Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki o Aotearoa and was for twenty years a Trustee of the Spirit of Adventure Trust. She has four daughters and two grandchildren and lives in Devonport, Auckland, where she enjoys sailing, concertgoing, teaching creative writing and reading.

Alan Duff was born in 1950 and lives with his wife and four children in Havelock North, New Zealand. He has published two precious novels, Once Were Warriors (also available in Vintage) and One Night Out Stealing; a novella, State Ward; and a work of non-fiction, Maori- The Crisis and the Challenge. Once Were Warriors won the PEN Best First Book for Fiction Award and was made into an internationally acclaimed film for which Alan Duff wrote the original screenplay.

Isabelle Duff is a farmer, author, and student at the University of New South Wales, where she is studying Advanced Science and Commerce.  Susannah Crispe is a Canberra-based children’s book illustrator with a background in zoology and art history and a love of beautifully crafted books.