Mark Broatch is a journalist and critic of three decades and is the author of three books, two on language, In a Word and Word to the Wise. A longtime literary editor, he is a trustee of the Mātātuhi Foundation and has been an Ockham New Zealand Book Awards fiction judge, a peer assessor at Creative NZ Toi Aotearoa, a Buddle Findlay Sargeson fellow and a resident at the Michael King Writers Centre.