2026 NZSA President of Honour awarded to Fleur Beale

The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa is delighted to announce that Fleur Beale is the NZSA 2026 President of Honour, who will deliver the prestigious NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Lecture in 2026.

This prestigious honour is bestowed on a senior writer and long-serving NZSA member in recognition of their contribution to writing, writers and the literary arts sector in Aotearoa. Fleur Beale ONZM has written over 50 books and readers for children and young adults plus one non-fiction book for adults. Her books have been shortlisted 13 times for the NZ Childrens and Young Adults Book Awards. She won the NZCYP Young Adult category award in 2011 for Fierce September, which also won the LIANZA Esther Glenn Award. Her book Juno of Taris also won the LIANZA Esther Glenn Award. She has received 16 Storylines Notable Book Awards, and twice won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for A Much Loved Book for Slide the Corner and I am not Esther. She has had many stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand for both children and adults.

Fleur was awarded the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal in 2012, and an ONZM for services to literature in 2015, and is the current patron of the Dorothy Neale White Children’s Book Collection at the National Library of New Zealand.

She is a manuscript assessor and a member of the Association of Manuscript Assessors NZ, she has given many workshops on writing to young people and adults, judged many writing competitions and has worked as a mentor. For several years she taught creative writing at night classes and took a workshop on assessment for students at the excellent Whitireia publishing course until cuts kicked in, and the admin stopped employing guest lecturers.

It matters deeply to Fleur that NZ young people have books that resonate with their lives and experiences which is why she started writing books set in our country and with text reflecting the way we speak.

On receiving the President of Honour title, Fleur Beale said "I am quite overwhelmed by the honour. The Society of Authors has been such an important part of my life, it’s so reassuring for a writer working away in what feels like the dark to know the Society has our backs and is there to throw light on tricky matters and support us.

I feel that my appointment is an opportunity to spotlight the importance of writing for children who are, of course, the future readers of books for adults. We need to have a solid cohort of keen readers growing up to advocate for and support NZ writing and publishing."

NZSA President Dr Vanda Symon says "We are delighted to have Fleur Beale as our 2026 NZSA President of Honour. We admire her dedication to childrens' literature and the importance of telling New Zealand stories as the building blocks of literacy and creating life-long readers."