New Zealand

Based in the lush Far North of New Zealand, K.V. Martins writes accompanied by the song of a family of boisterous tūī birds outside her window. She writes historical fiction, ghost and gothic fiction, as well as poetry.

Catherine Chidgey’s novels have been published to international acclaim. Her first, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific). In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times Book Review and a Best Book in the LA Times. Catherine has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The Wish Child. She lives in Ngāruawāhia and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato. Her 2020 novel, Remote Sympathy, was shortlisted for the DUBLIN Literary Award and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Catherine’s novel The Axeman’s Carnival was published in 2022 and is a finalist in the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.

Laurence Fearnley is an award-winning novelist. Her novel The Hut Builder won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards and was shortlisted for the international 2010 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain writing. Her book Edwin and Matilda was runner-up in the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and her second novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2001 Montana Book Awards. In 2004 Fearnley was awarded the Artists to Antarctica Fellowship and in 2007 the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. Laurence Fearnley lives in Dunedin with her husband and son.

Dr Patricia Berwick was born in New Zealand and currently lives in New Zealand. She has lived and worked in Europe, USA, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu and her native New Zealand. 

Tom Baragwanath is originally from Masterton, New Zealand, and now lives in Parish. His short fiction has been widely published. Between pastries, he's working on his next novel.

Michael Bennett (Ngati Pikiao, Ngati Whakaue) is an award-winning New Zealand screenwriter and author whose films have been selected for numerous festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and New York. In 2008 Michael was the inaugural recipient of the Writers Award from the New Zealand Film Commission, and in 2005 he was awarded the British Council/New Zealand Writers Foundation Award. In 2011 Michael’s feature film Matariki won Best Feature Film Screenplay at the New Zealand Screenwriting Awards, and in 2013 he was awarded Best Documentary Screenplay for his documentary on the Teina Pora case, The Confessions of Prisoner T. He went on to publish In Dark Places in 2016, which won Best Non-Fiction Book at the Ngaio Marsh Awards and Best Biography/History at the Nga Kupu Ora Awards 2017. Michael lives in Auckland, New Zealand, and is Head of Screenwriting at South Seas Film School.

Steffanie Holmes is the author of steamy historical and paranormal romance. Her books feature clever, witty heroines, wild shifters, cunning witches and alpha males who get what they want.

Before becoming a writer, Steffanie worked as an archaeologist and museum curator. She loves to explore historical settings and ancient conceptions of love and possession. From Dark Age Europe to crumbling gothic estates, Steffanie is fascinated with how love can blossom between the most unlikely characters.

Steffanie lives in New Zealand with her husband and a horde of cantankerous cats. Learn more about Steffanie at her website: www.steffanieholmes.com. She also writes dark science fiction under the name S C Green.

Jacqueline 'Rock' Bublitz is a writer, feminist, and arachnophobe who lives between Melbourne, Australia and her hometown on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island.

Clare Moleta was raised on Whadjuk Noongar Country in Western Australia. Her fiction has been published in literary journals and broadcast on Radio New Zealand, and she has won awards for her travel writing. She has a Writing Diploma from RMIT University and an MA in Creative Writing from Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington. She now lives in Poneke | Wellington, Aotearoa, where she was born. 

Patricia Forrester Donovan is a contemporary writer of adult fiction. She graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Master's Degree (with honours) in English Literature. After graduation she worked in corporate communications in Australia and New Zealand and is the author of best practice guide to the profession.

Andy grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, spent too many years in the fog of London, then followed the long white cloud – and his wife – to Wellington. Always wanting to write, he completed an Advanced Certificate in Creative Writing (Novel) at Whitireia in 2015, followed by a Graduate Diploma in 2016. He writes contemporary fiction, science-fiction and travel blogs. Several of his sci-fi short stories have been published in Sponge.nz.

Angelique Kasmara has a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. She was a finalist for the Michael Gifkins Prize and won the Sir James Wallace Prize in 2016. Some of her fiction appears in Newsroom, Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices.

Angelique lives in Tāmaki Makaurau where she works as a communications manager, writer, translator and reviewer.

I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and grew up in the Far East, first in Hong Kong and then in Singapore.

Chris was born in Eastbourne in the UK to a British mother and New Zealander father. He moved to New Zealand with his family at age two where he spent over six years growing up in Auckland. It was during this time that Chris’ love for reading and writing began, spending his early years penning hundreds of short stories his mother still has tucked away.

Upon returning to the UK, Chris lived in a small town in Sussex. These years went on to inspire many of the themes in his novels, such as coming of age, small-town homophobia and isolation. Chris moved to Hampshire at age nineteen to study journalism at university.

Upon graduating, Chris moved to London and began a career in copywriting. In 2011, he published his debut book of poetry through his co-founded publishing company, PRNTD.

Chris relocated to Australia in 2014 and released his LGBTQ+ coming-of-age novel The Nowhere in 2019. His New Zealand mystery novel Boy Fallen is coming out 22 March 2022.

Chris lives in Sydney with his husband.

Madeleine Eskedahl was born and raised in Sweden on the beautiful island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

Tom Remiger is the name under which Tom McLean writes fiction. He is originally from Rotorua, New Zealand, but now livs in the UK, where he is completing a DPhil in literature at Oxford.

Fiona Leitch is a writer with a chequered past. She’s written for football and motoring magazines, DJ’ed at illegal raves and is a stalwart of the low budget TV commercial, even appearing as the Australasian face of a cleaning product called 'Sod Off'. After living in London and Cornwall she's finally settled in sunny New Zealand, where she enjoys scaring her cats by trying out dialogue on them. She spends her days dreaming of retiring to a crumbling Venetian palazzo, walking on the windswept beaches of West Auckland, and writing funny, flawed but awesome female characters.

Brandy Scott is a New Zealand-born, Dubai-based author and journalist. Over her twenty-year career, she's worked as a magazine writer, newspaper editor, and radio presenter. 

Rose Carlyle is a lawyer and keen adventurer. She has crewed on scientific yachting expeditions to subantarctic islands and lived aboard her own yacht in the Indian Ocean for a year, sailing it from Thailand to South Africa via the Seychelles. Rose was a Michael King Writer in Residence in 2020. She lives in Auckland with her three children.

For Dione Jones, writing is a long-held passion. She lives in New Zealand but was born in England and if often inspired to write about the past and changes to the English way of life, she has a Master of Creative Writing and has won an award in the National Flash Fiction competition.

Robert Jenkins was born and raised in Walthamstow, East London. Running wild was his heritage but he also wrote plays for the stage, novels and short stories. He wrote poetry from a young age and read them in the early days of stand-up poetry nights in London pubs. Straddling realities can happen in great cities. He travelled the world with his wife and children and back at home lived and worked with some of the most challenging, damaged and beautiful people in society.

Rosetta Allan is an Auckland based novelist, poet, and short fiction writer. Born in Putaruru, Rosetta grew up in the Hawkes Bay, then studied at the University of Auckland, obtaining her Masters of Creative Writing with First Class Honours in 2017, and was the recipient of the Sir James Wallace Masters of Creative Writing Scholarship.

Maxine Alterio is a novelist, short story writer and academic mentor. She has a MA from Otago University and a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, where she studied the memoirs of First World War nurses.

Sandra Arnold lives in New Zealand. She has a MLitt (High Distinction) and PhD in Creative Writing from Central Queensland University, Australia and is the author of a book on parental bereavement, Sing no Sad Songs and two novels, Tomorrow’s Empire and A Distraction of Opposites. Her first flash fiction collection Soul Etchings (Retreat West Books, UK) was published in June 2019. Her third novel, Ash (Mākaro Press, NZ) will be published in August 2019.

Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Nelson, raised in Waimangaroa and has returned there to live with her family, working as a reporter for The News in Westport. Becky’s short story ‘Abalone’ was long-listed for the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, her essay ‘Mothers Day’ has been selected for the Landfall anthology Strong Words. Auē is her first novel.

Bruce Melrose grew up on New Zealand's Kapiti Coast, just north of the capital city, Wellington, and is a graduate of Massey University.

He was a Wellington track champion over 3000m steeplechase and 10,000m, and a New Zealand 3000m steeplechase representative in 1989.

He raced in the IAAF Grand Prix 3000m steeplechase in London against many of the best steeplechasers of his generation.

He lives with Ali and their two dogs Ruby and Benny.

Stephanie Johnson is the author of several collections of poetry and of short stories, some plays and adaptations, and many fine novels. The New Zealand Listener commented that ‘Stephanie Johnson is a writer of talent and distinction. Over the course of an award-winning career — during which she has written plays, poetry, short stories and novels — she has become a significant presence in the New Zealand literary landscape, a presence cemented and enhanced by her roles as critic and creative writing teacher.' the Shag Incident won the Montana Deutz Medal for Fiction in 2003, and Belief was shortlisted for the same award. Stephanie has also won the Bruce Mason Playwrights Award and Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, and was the 2001 Literary Fellow at the University of Auckland. Many of her novels have been published in Australia, America and the United Kingdom. She co-founded the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival with Peter Wells in 1999.

Lily Woodhouse is the Australian pen name of award winning New Zealand author Stephanie Johnson.

James N. Bade, professor emeritus of German at the University of Auckland, lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

Rob Elliott, a New Zealander, is a member and former President of his local U3A Chapter. He has travelled widely during his career in the Motor Industry. Since retirement he has written and published a memoir and five novels.

Christina O’Reilly is a writer, freelance proofreader, and copy editor currently living in the Manawatu. Two of her short stories have been published in the anthologies Horizons 3 and The Rangitawa Collection 2017. Her first crime novel, Into the Void, was recently longlisted for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize for an Unpublished Novel.

Frances Housden lives in New Zealand, a beautiful country not so very different from Scotland, where she was born. She began her career as a published writer after winning Romance Writers of New Zealands prestigious Clendon Award. She went on to pen six very successful novels for Silhouette Books, where she merged her penchant for characterisation with her love of suspense. She is now delving into the world of historical romance, using her love of history to take her readers on an exciting trip into the lives of memorable characters.

Jennifer Palgrave is the pen name of new writing partnership Lois Cox and Hilary Lapsley. Both are experienced writers of non-fiction.

Jennifer Palgrave is the pen name of new writing partnership Lois Cox and Hilary Lapsley. Both are experienced writers of non-fiction.

Jennifer Palgrave is the pen name of new writing partnership Lois Cox and Hilary Lapsley. Both are experienced writers of non-fiction.

Carmel Reilly writes for children and adults. She has worked as an educational writer for almost two decades and is the author of more than 300 titles of fiction and non-fiction for children and young teens. In 2011 she won the Partners in Crime Short Story award and in 2016 she was awarded a Varuna Residental Fellowship to develop her first novel, Life Before. Born in New Zealand, she now lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Cherie Mitchell is an Amazon bestselling author with a number of short story prizes, book awards, and literary commendations to her name. Her biggest prize to date was a complimentary trip across the world when her book The House At Sailor's Bay was ranked as a finalist in the Litnet Small Towns, Big Stories Contest.

Shauna writes crime novels featuring characters who aren't afraid to solve mysteries, find murderers, and generally get themselves in all sorts of danger. In real life, Shauna wouldn't be found doing any of these things.

I was born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand. I also spent three years living and working in Japan, during which time I took the chance to travel around Asia. I’m back in New Zealand now, but I’m always plotting new trips. If you’d like to see some of my travel snapshots, have a look at the Travel Diary page (updated every month).

So far, I've worked as a lawyer, a librarian, a candy factory general hand, a bank temp and an English teacher and not necessarily in that order. Some might call that inconsistency but I call it grist for the writer's mill.
 

R.W.R. McDonald is a Kiwi living in Melbourne with his two daughters and an extended rainbow family including HarryCat and Stevie Nicks the chicken. 

Catherine lives with a fox terrier that thinks he owns the house. She has sold international satellite capacity, worked in IT recruitment, and run her own communications store.

When Catherine isn't writing, she's dog-wrangling, wrestling with technology, or going crazy trying to maintain control of the yard.

He currently lives in the capital city of New Zealand with his wife & ex SPCA cat, Dudley.

When he's writing a novel (he has published twelve in twelve years) he works every day of the week, in the mornings, for 3-5 hours. A retired pensioner,it's his only paid employment.

Karen has always written stories, many over the recent years for her writers group. You can download her collection of young children's stories, "Cinderella Sarah" FOR FREE from here: http://www.karencossey.com/childrens-...

Having home-schooled her two children for five years, she tries to put something of her love of family and joy of living into her writing. She lives in beautiful New Zealand, near to the beach, along with her husband, her two kids who are now teenagers, and a very practical People Mover vehicle which looks nothing like the Ferrari she dreams of. Nor the unicorn. Worst of all, it doesn't come with a chauffeur or even a taxi driver so she also dreams about the day her teenagers get their own driving licences. :)

Being a writer she obviously has a cat, who is called Marbles and likes to talk with her other pet, Milly the goat. 

Brent Partner is a writer, academic librarian, husband and father. 

Writer based in Auckland, New Zealand.

Ella West, the pen name of Karen Trebilcock, was born in Invercargill, New Zealand and writes novels for young adults. She now lives on a rural property near Mosgiel, Dunedin, with her husband and two sons. As well as writing fiction, she also works part time as a journalist. Her next book Rain Fall is due out in January 2018.

Writing is one of those things that I have always done. I vividly remember spending most of an English exam writing a complicated adventure story as the answer to an exam question. I passed the exam, either because of, or despite the answer. 

Andrea lives in Orewa, New Zealand. When not working or writing she can be found either inching through the novels of Charles Dickens with reasonable success; learning to stand-up paddle board with fair to middling success; or attempting to limit quaffing of bubbles with little to no success.

Brian Falkner is one of the pre-eminent writers for children and young adults in Australasia and has won multiple awards for his work.

Hi, I’m Linda Coles, an English woman now living in New Zealand.

I’ve written marketing books and a couple of romance books, and have now settled on crime as my chosen genre, since that’s what I enjoy reading the most.

I developed the DS Amanda Lacey series back in 2017 and have watched her and her colleagues grow over the stories, through their work as well as their personal lives. Jack Rutherford is her work partner, and is a bit of a ‘Maigret’; as for Amanda herself, I can’t think of anyone she’d be like except maybe like lots of women. She’s honourable, savvy, loving and wears well-polished Doc Martin boots with her sensible work suit, so that should tell you something of her nature. Together the duo work the strangest of crimes in Croydon, UK. I do like to give them both modern cases to solve, quite often involving the dark web for a bit of extra intrigue.
 

Giovanni Rex’s noir-ish novels cut a broad swath across the contemporary genre. This is part due to the complexity of time shifts, narrative voices, and bizarre characterizations. Part thriller, part literary musing, the author’s tone is a times a moral cry for a better society, with more compassion, less violence, but at others the pages are awash with blood and sex. Whom ever the author is, and there are plenty of hints within his novels to assume there is another hand behind the declared writer, an excellent puppet master is pulling the literary strings. He/she has taken the noir convention and cut it to pieces.

J.P. Pomare is an award-winning writer who has had work published in journals including Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Takahe and Mascara Literary Review. He has hosted the On Writing podcast since 2015 featuring bestselling authors from around the globe. He was born in New Zealand and resides in Melbourne with his wife.

Linda Olsson lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Her debut 'Let me sing you gentle songs' was published in September 2005 in New Zealand. Since then the rights for it have been sold to many countries. It has now been published in the US and Canada under the title 'Astrid and Veronika' as well as in her country of birth, Sweden (Låt mig sjunga dig milda sånger).

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Lawrence is an ex soldier who also spent a number of years in the Middle East working with an Evangelical Christian relief and development organization. This gives me a unique perspective on things that I believe are reflected in my writing. An ability to 'look behind' what's happening and give a unique perspective reflected in the stories I write.

Karen Zelas lives in quake-struck Christchurch. A former psychiatrist and psychotherapist, she returned to university, taking creative writing papers at Canterbury University in preparation for giving up her day job.

Nathan Blackwell was raised on Auckland's North Shore and attended Westlake Boys High School before commencing a ten-year career in the New Zealand Police. Seven of those years were spent as a Detective in the Criminal Investigation Branch, where he was exposed to human nature at its strongest and bravest, but also at its most depraved and horrific.

John Rosanowski was born in Reefton and studied history at the University of Canterbury. He has written articles on West Coast history for newspapers,magazines and the NZ Journal of History.

Michalia Arathimos is a Greek / New Zealand writer who lives in Melbourne with her partner and two sons. She is a prize-winning author of short stories and essays, and winner of the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards, 2016. She works as a freelance editor and is the fiction reviewer for Melbourne magazine Overland.

I live with Ruth in Napier, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Napier is located on the eastern coast of the North Island. I have lived here since May 2015. NAPIER is a popular place for tourists because of its unique 1930's Art Deco architecture. Most of the city had to be rebuilt after the earthquake of 1931 which destroyed just about all the city buildings. It also has a beautiful Marine Parade. The temperatures in summer are often 30 -33 degrees.

Danyl McLauchlan was born in Wellington in 1974. He studied at Victoria University, and worked and travelled in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, before he returned to Wellington where he works as a biologist.

Charity Norman was born in Uganda and brought up in successive draughty vicarages in Yorkshire and Birmingham. After several years' travel she became a barrister, specialising in crime and family law in the northeast of England. Also a mediator, she is passionate about the power of communication to slice through the knots. In 2002, realising that her three children had barely met her, she took a break from the law and moved with her family to New Zealand.  Charity currently lives in Napier, New Zealand 

A former Customs Officer, Kirsten McKenzie fought international crime for several years before leaving to help run the family antique shop. Ten years of surrounding herself with beautiful old things resulted in the publication of her first novel and her evolvement into a full time author.

Recipient of the 2006 Alice B. Readers' Appreciation Award. Born in beautiful New Zealand, the author now resides in the Midwest with her partner and a menagerie of animals. When she is not writing or reading, she loves to explore the mountains and prairies near her home, a landscape eternally and wonderfully foreign to her. Jennifer first published lesbian mysteries under this pen name with the Naiad Press in the 1990s. Her Amanda Valentine series was also published by Silver Moon in England, and in translation by Frauenoffensive in Germany.

Tanya Moir grew up in a small town in Southland, the deep south of New Zealand, and now lives on the west coast of Auckland with her husband and a large dog. 

Brannavan Gnanalingam is a critically-acclaimed novelist from the Hutt Valley, New Zealand. His previous novel Credit in the Straight World about a small town finance company collapse drew comparisons with A Confederacy of Dunces and Charles Dickens, whilst his other books have examined Kiwis travelling in Paris and West Africa. This, his fourth novel, is his first set in Wellington. He hopes - one day - to write a novel about cricket.

John is a sixth generation New Zealander through his maternal blood lines and the Great, Great, Great, Grandson of John Daysh whom arrived in New Zealand in 1841 from Hamshire, England. Just two years after the Treaty of Waitangi which granted Britain dual sovereignty (with the indigenous Maori) over New Zealand. He is a proud New Zealander who knows Thailand well.   http://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/news/keeping-track-of-john-daysh-an-int...

After seven years of working as a librarian in New Zealand and overseas, Nikki now works as a freelance proofreader and copy editor. She lives in the small Waikato town of Cambridge in New Zealand with her husband and two girls.  Nikki has been writing on and off her whole life and recently has had success in flash fiction. She has been published in Flash Frontier, Flash Fiction Magazine and Mayhem Literary Journal. Crime/thriller/mystery novels are her passion. Nothing Bad Happens Here is her fist novel (but hopefully not her last), set on the Coromanadel Coast of New Zealand.

I had my first taste of literary success at the age of eleven when I won St Michael’s Primary School’s Year Six creative writing competition with my dramatic World War II piece, Dominic Finds a Way. Twenty-four comparatively unsuccessful years later, I was one of the winners of NZ Book Month’s Six Pack Twocompetition with Scout’s Honour, an extract from an early draft of what was to become All Our Secrets. My short stories have been published in journals and magazines both here and across the Tasman, including Southerly: Writers and their Journals (Australia), Pulp (NZ), Viola Beadleton’s Compendium (NZ) and Island (Australia).

Born in Bristol, England, I was always an avid reader. I've worked in Europe and travelled fairly extensively. I have written various sailing articles and had them published in magazines. Having lived and worked in the Middle East for a number of years, I believe I have a good understanding of the region. I used that experience to write my first full novel 'The Jaws of Revenge' quickly followed by my second, 'Terror of the Innocent'. Both star US Navy SEAL John Deacon and some of his colleagues in the Pentagon. Both also feature his adversary, Saif the Palestinian - an ex-Navy traitor whose mission in life is to destroy the West and, in particular, the USA.

I live in Auckland, New Zealand with my husband John, son Roy and daughter Hayley. We live close to the sea and only minutes from the city.

Eleanor Catton (born 1985) is a New Zealand author. Catton was born in Canada while her father, a New Zealand graduate, was completing a doctorate at the University of Western Ontario. She lived in Yorkshire until the age of 13, before her family settled in Canterbury, New Zealand. She studied English at the University of Canterbury, and completed a Master's in Creative Writing at The Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington. She wrote her first novel, The Rehearsal, as her master's thesis.Eleanor Catton holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she also held an adjunct professorship, and an MA in fiction from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. Currently she teaches creative writing at the Manukau Institute of Technology.

About the Author EWING, Barbara ( - ) is an actor and novelist whose first novel, Strangers (1978) was not followed up by a second for twenty years, when The Actresses was published in 1997. Born and educated in New Zealand, Ewing has spent most of her life living and working as an actor in London. Mistakenly assumed by many critics and readers to be Ewing's first book, The Actresses was a popular and acclaimed novel. It is described in The Times as combining "elements of courtroom drama and comedy of manners, as well as sharp insights into the harsher realities of theatrical life."

Adam Sarafis is the creation of authors Linda Olsson and Thomas Sainsbury.  Linda Olsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948. She left Sweden in 1986 and has lived in Kenya, Singapore, the UK and Japan, before settling in New Zealand. Her first novel, Let me sing you gentle songs (aka Astrid & Veronica) became an international bestseller, and has been followed by three more novels. She divides her time between Auckland and Stockholm. Thomas Sainsbury was born in Matamata, New Zealand. After graduating from the University of Auckland he pursued a career in theatre, television and comedy. His darkly comic plays have been performed throughout New Zealand and in Australia, USA, UK, Greece and France. He co-wrote the award-winning New Zealand television comedy Super City and the Vietnamese.

Donna Malane is a writer, television producer, script and series advisor, script writer, story-liner, script and story editor and developer. She has written a huge variety of television including drama, crime-drama and doco-drama, fantasy, children’s drama, sketch comedy, and documentary. Although Donna’s writing has largely been for television she has also had two other books published and her plays and short stories have been broadcast on National Radio.  

David McGill is a New Zealand social historian who has published 53 books. Born in Auckland, educated in the Bay of Plenty and at a Christchurch seminary, he trained as a teacher and did a BA at Victoria University of Wellington. He worked as a feature writer for The Listener, Sydney’s The Bulletin, London’s TVTimes, wrote columns for the Evening Post in Wellington and edited a local lifestyle magazine before becoming a full-time writer in 1984. His book subjects include Ghost Towns of New Zealand and the country’s first bushranger, local and national heritage buildings, Kiwi prisoners of war, the history of the NZ Customs Department, a biography of a criminal lawyer, a personal history of rock music, a rail journey around the country, historical and comic novels, several thrillers and six collections of Kiwi slang. He collects owl figurines and reads thrillers.

Annaleese Jochem was born in 1994 and grew up in Northland. She won the 2016 Adam Prize from the International Institute of Modern Letters for Baby, which is her first book.

Finn Bell lives in the far south of New Zealand where he writes full time. 

My first career was in orthodox medicine. I worked in the hospital specialties of cancer care and general psychiatry, and spent some time in rural general practice. From 1991-2000 I held the post of Consultant in Psychological Medicine at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, England. I published a number of medical books and research papers. Then I moved to Auckland with my New Zealand-born husband, and trained as a Bach Foundation Registered Practitioner and Life Coach. Writing is now my main pursuit, with several books on holistic healing and natural therapies, three short novels and another on the way. I also edited my uncle's memoir 'Geoffrey Guy's War: Memoirs of a Spitfire Pilot'. Other interests are choral singing and animal welfare.

A romantic mystery set at a beautiful lake in the South Island of New Zealand. Andrea North is looking forward to a job at Lake Waihola as a way to escape from a man who tried to control her life, but an easy task is soon complicated by a house with a secret hoard, dead birds, and a close encounter with a callous but good looking pig hunter. When the campground dog pulls a gruesome object from the lake, Andy discovers who she can trust as the police and the pig hunter involve her in their hunt for a missing man.

Carolyn Hawes was born in Westport. From the age of 14 she began writing poetry and then turned to short story writing. Later she researched and wrote a local history book, Great Expectations: the Colonisation of Buller. She has written articles for the local Westport paper, The News, including a column containing 25 biographical stories about Westport's mayors from 1873 until 1983 and has had freelance articles in The Press, Nelson Mail and various journals.

I am a writer of fantasy novels and speculative fiction, sometime narrator of podcasts (including stories for the Hugo award-winning StarShipSofa), occasional sailor of sailing things, and father of two wee miracles in a little house on a hill, under the southern sun.

David (D.A.) Crossman is a novelist and short story writer with a passion for flawed detectives, sinister spies, and femme fatales. English on his father’s side and Norwegian on his mother’s, David was born in South Africa and raised in South East London. David spent a number of years as an itinerant worker and he has resided in France, Israel, India, and Australia before settling down in rural New Zealand where he now lives with his family and their clowder of cats. He is currently employed (without remuneration) by his children as a cook, chauffeur, cleaner, gardener, and general dogsbody. When he isn’t ‘singing’ disharmoniously to the soundtrack of loud progressive rock music or shouting intemperately at the football on the TV, David can be found staring absently at the blank computer screen in the study.

Helen Vivienne Fletcher wrote her first novel between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. It is, by several accounts, one of the funniest novels ever written. It’s just a shame it was supposed to be a psychological thriller.

Robert Fisk is a New Zealand writer, based in Dunedin in the South Island. 

SL Beaumont is the author of the young adult romantic mystery saga, The Carlswick Mysteries. She lives in beautiful New Zealand with her husband, three teenage sons and an enormous fluffy cat. Her passion for travel has seen her take many long haul flights from New Zealand. Her love of history helps determine the destination and the places she visits are a constant source of inspiration for her. She is a Chartered Accountant by day, having worked in London, New York and Auckland, and an author by night.

About the Author Colin D. Peel is the author of more than 20 novels, most of which have been published in the UK. His last novel to be published in New Zealand was White Desert (2002). British by birth, Colin spent many years working in the aerospace industries of USA, Europe and Canada as a weapons systems engineer. His writing often reflects his knowledge of classified defence projects. Colin and his wife now live in Waiuku, Auckland.

Ray Berard is a Canadian-born Kiwi writer based in Christchurch, New Zealand. A McGill University graduate and five-year member of the NZ authors association, writing has always been his passion, and in recent years a full-time one. 

Thomas Ryan has been a soldier in a theatre of war, traded in Eastern Europe, trampled the jungles of Asia and struggled through the trials of love and loss: ideal life experiences for a would-be author. Schooled by professionals who have helped him hone his literary style, Ryan is quickly establishing himself as a skilled writer of riveting thrillers and short stories. He considers himself foremost a storyteller, a creator who has plunged his psyche into the world of imagination and fantasy. Taking readers on a thrilling journey is what motivates Ryan as a writer.

Adam Christopher was born in Auckland, New Zealand. In 2006, he moved to the sunny North West of England, where he lives in domestic bliss with wife and cat in a house next to a canal. Adam’s short fiction has appeared in Pantechnicon, Hub, and Dark Fiction Magazine. Adam's debut novel, Empire State, is due from Angry Robot in January 2012. When not writing Adam can be found drinking tea and obsessing over Dark Shadows, DC Comics, and 1960s Doctor Who. Adam is also very bad at épée but knows that Thibault cancels out Capa Ferro, unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. Which he has.

Adam Childs was born in Kent, England in 1960. He emigrated to Canada in 1973 and to New Zealand in 2010. He has travelled extensively, much of it as part of his work with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). He has been interested in writing since he was a teenager but never found the time until now: Despite having written many academic articles, reports and analyses for work purposes, Schrödinger's Cabinet is his first published fiction novel. Although he is a great fan of detective fiction, he never intended to write in that genre; he was motivated to write Schrödinger's Cabinet more for its political aspects than the detective angle. That said, he found the process so much fun he plans on continuing to write novels featuring Detectives King and Pasternak.

Alan R. Kerr was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He was brought up outside Belfast in Northern Ireland and now divides his time between the United Kingdom and Cyprus.

Twenty-year-old Ben Sanders’ fascination with crime fiction has paid off. Born and bred on Auckland’s North Shore, Sanders has been hooked on Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Cormac McCarthy and Pete Dexter since the age of thirteen, and now he’s put his interest in these big-selling authors to work. A keen writer since his teens, Sanders is also passionate about music; he wrote his first novel while listening to the tunes of R.E.M, Nick Cave, Grant-Lee Phillips, and The Mutton Birds and even found time to study engineering at the University of Auckland.

Warren Olson didn't set out to be an author ; nor for that matter did he envisage he would become one of the most well known and successful Western private investigators to operate in South East Asia. .... A few years later he repatriated to his native New Zealand, where following an interest in Transnational crime he completed a masters degree in Strategic studies and penned an award winning research paper on cross cultural interviewing.

I was born in England, Lived in London and immigrated to New Zealand where I learned to play rugby, chase girls and play the viola and guitar. During the 1970s I worked for the National Art Gallery and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 

Tina Clough grew up in Sweden and now lives in Hawke's Bay New Zealand. She left a career in corporate administration and divides her time between writing and looking after a one-acre field full of fruit trees, hens and various forms of wildlife, and taking visitors on wine tours.

Mike White is a senior writer at North & South magazine. He investigated Scott Guy's murder for more than a year and was present throughout Ewen Macdonald's five-week trial. At the 2013 Canon Media Awards, he won the Magazine Feature Writer of the Year award for his coverage of the case.

Born in South Africa, now living in New Zealand, Fiona is a former GP who hung up her stethoscope ten years ago to pursue another longheld dream – to write. She has written a number of highly acclaimed short stories, and her debut novel novel, "Shifting Colours", was published in the UK in 2014 and in the USA in Oct 2015 under the title, "Another Woman's Daughter". Her second novel, " The Last Time We Spoke" was released in May 2016. When not juggling family life, or helping manage the charitable surgical service she and her husband established, she writes and loves it.

Julie started writing at the age of eight, stories about pre-revolutionary Russian princesses who rode troikas through the snow. She has worked in the media for over 25 years, radio, TV and film. She has written three novels and seven feature film scripts. In 2011 she sold her house in Auckland and moved two hours south to Cambridge, a glorious English style village, not unlike St Mary Mede. She shares her house with a highly intelligent and manipulative, but affectionate cat, Chloe, and is passionate about music, cooking and sport. She writes from the heart about subjects that she feels passionate about and her motto is "To dream of the person you could be is to waste the person you are." And also, "It was a brave man who ate the first oyster."

Damien Wilkins writes fiction, and he has published short stories, novels, and poetry. His writing has been described as ‘exuberant and evocative, subtle and exact, aware of its own artifice yet relishing the idiosyncrasies and possibilities of language’. Wilkins has had books published in New Zealand, the USA and the UK, and he has won and been nominated for a range of prizes and awards. He also edited the award-winning anthology, Great Sporting Moments: The best of Sport magazine 1988-2004 published in 2005.

Fiona Kidman is a leading contemporary novelist, short story writer and poet. Much of her fiction is focused on how outsiders navigate their way in narrowly conformist society. She has published a large and exciting range of fiction and poetry, and has worked as a librarian, producer and critic. Kidman has won numerous awards, and she has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and other significant honours, as well as being a consistent advocate for New Zealand writers and literature. She is the President of Honour for the New Zealand Book Council, and has been awarded an OBE and a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature. 

Neil Cross lives in New Zealand with his wife and two sons.  in 2006 Neil began working for Spooks, the BBC drama series set in the MI5 world of espionage.  In 2007, the Spooks production company Kudos asked Neil to work as lead writer for the Spooks Series 6.  He wrote four episodes of ten including the epic opening two parter.  The series will air in the UK in late 2007.  Neil is now working on a number of other television and film projects, as well as a new novel.

Scott Bainbridge is one of New Zealand's best-known true crime writers. He is the author of four books, including Shot in the Dark.

TINA SHAW has published a wide range of fiction for adults and children. Her short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and been broadcast on Radio New Zealand. She has held the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship, the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers’ Residency, and was the 2005 Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato. Her latest publication is the Bateman New Zealand Writer's Handbook. She is a manuscript assessor and creative writing tutor, and her website is http://www.tinashaw.co.nz

Ken Smith was born in London, England. He was educated in South Africa, mainly at Durban High School and Natal University. He is an admitted Attorney of the High Courts of South Africa and Lesotho, Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand and Legal Practitioner of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia, who practised law in South Africa for many years. He now resides in New Zealand.

Jane Woodham moved in 1998 from London to Dunedin, New Zealand, where she has been writing for the past nine years. Jane’s work has twice been shortlisted for the BNZ Literary Awards and has been published in New Zealand and the UK. A New Zealand Society of Authors mentorship in 2014 allowed Jane to work with crime writer Paddy Richardson on the final draft of Twister, her first novel. Some events in Twister occur around the Dunedin Hot Salt Water Pool, where Jane is a regular swimmer. She is also a keen gardener, cook and fair-weather surfer.

Puppeteer, children's entertainer, owner of a model agency, TV talk show panelist, luxury accommodation owner, entrepreneur: storyteller Leonie Mateer has lived a full and diverse life.  Born and raised in New Zealand, Mateer moved to the United States in her 30s to pursue business opportunities. She returned to New Zealand for several years in the 2000s, running a luxury lodge in Northland - which has been an inspiration for her crime series - and now splits her time between Northland and the United States. 

T.A. Maclagan is a Kansas girl by birth but now lives in the bush-clad hills of Wellington, New Zealand with her Kiwi husband, son and four pampered cats. With a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Ph.D. in anthropology, she’s studied poison dart frogs in the rainforests of Costa Rica, howler monkeys in Panama and the very exotic and always elusive American farmer. It was as she was writing her ‘just the facts’ dissertation that T.A. felt the call to pursue something more imaginative and discovered a passion for creative writing. 

Alan Carter was born in Sunderland, UK, in 1959.  He holds a degree in Communication Studies from Sunderland Polytechnic and immigrated to Australia in 1991.  Alan lives in Fremantle with his wife Kath and son Liam.  He works as a television documentary director.  In his spare time he follows a black line up and down the Fremantle pool. 

I was born in Zambia and raised in Malawi – a country known as the Warm Heart of Africa but made famous as the place where Madonna finds her children.  At 14 I moved from the warm heart of Africa to the cold lungs of Edinburgh, where I discovered the true meaning of the term ‘culture shock’.  After Edinburgh I studied history at Cambridge. Then off to London where, before I had time to find a career, a career in communications found me.  In my search to return to warmer weather, I moved to beautiful New Zealand in 2003, where I have lived ever since with my wife and two children. Except for 2014 where I moved to France and divided my time very unevenly between cat-sitting and writing my second book. The cat just about survived - sorry Molly! - and I finished my second book - Please Do Not Disturb. I am now back in New Zealand writing book three.

Vanda Symon grew up in Tauranga and Hawkes Bay before heading south to study at the University of Otago.  After graduating with a Bachelor of Pharmacy, Vanda returned to Hawkes Bay to work as a pharmacist in the community and local hospice.  After starting a family and making the decision to be at home with the children, she had the opportunity to indulge in her love of writing.  Vanda now lives in Dunedin with her husband and two young boys.

Craig Marriner (born 1974) is a novelist from Rotorua, New Zealand. His 2001 novel Stonedogs won a Montana New Zealand Book Award and in 2003 the film rights were sold to Australian production company Mushroom Pictures, a film based on the book is currently in production. His second novel Southern Style was published in 2006. He is currently working on a third novel about a group of backpackers trekking through Europe during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Chad Taylor was born in New Zealand in November 1964. He grew up in Manurewa, South Auckland and read English and Art History while doing a Fine Arts degree at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine Arts. ("I wanted to do something creative and I wanted to find out how art worked. Also, all my favourite bands had gone to art school," he says.) While studying he wrote music and film reviews for Rip It Up magazine.

Cat lives in the Wellington region of New Zealand with her husband (Action Man), and their youngest children (The Boy Wonder, Squealer and Breezy). They share their home with a cat named Missy and Romeo the Greyhound. Cat has found the time to author 11 novels her latest being The _Byte series featuring Supervisory Special Agent Ellie Conway - published by Rebel e Publishing.  When Cat is not writing she is sewing, tie-dying, reading, or hanging out with her  family and the Admins. (Admin One, Admin Bubbles and Cat spent April 2011 in the USA, they had a fabulous time and managed not to get arrested...)

Professor Liam McIlvanney, the son of novelist William McIlvanney, was born in Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, and studied at Glasgow and Oxford Universities. After ten years lecturing in Scottish and Irish literature at the University of Aberdeen, he moved to Dunedin in New Zealand to teach at the University of Otago. He lectures in Scottish literature, culture and history, and on Irish-Scottish literary connections, and holds the Stuart Professor of Scottish Studies chair at the University. He won a Saltire Award for his first book, Burns the Radical, in 2002. A chance meeting with an editor for Faber and Faber persuaded him to turn to fiction, and his first novel, All the Colours of the Town, was published in 2009. He is currently working on a second novel featuring journalist Gerry Conway. He has also written reviews and criticism for the London Review of Books, The Guardian, and others. He lives in Dunedin with his wife and children.

Ben Atkins completed the first draft of his first novel aged only seventeen, and yet writes with the maturity of a forty year old. He is a student of Political Studies and Film & Media Studies at Auckland University. He has a deep interest in how politics permeates and defines society. 

John Ling is a Malaysian-born writer based in New Zealand. By day, he works as a producer at TVNZ, the nation's largest broadcaster. By night, he is the managing editor of Kia Kaha Press, a publishing imprint. His thriller, The Blasphemer, is available now as an e-book from  Amazon.com

Professor Brian Stoddart is an international consultant who works mainly on higher education reform in Asia and the Middle East, and is currently Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute based at the University of Melbourne.    He trained as a South Asianist then also became an international authority on sport and culture.  His academic career was spent in Australia, Malaysia, Canada and Barbados, and he finished his formal career with a term as Vice-Chancellor and President at La Trobe University in Australia.  In addition to his formal work he is a regular contributor to regular and new media as a columnist and commentator.

I write crime fiction by night and work as an archivist by day. I grew up at Franz Josef Glacier and worked in various national parks before spending 10 years as a journalist on a small-town newspaper. I set my mysteries in some of New Zealand's most beautiful places. My glacier guide sleuth Philippa Barnes lives the dream, retreating to the icy spaces of the glacier when she needs time alone.

Elizabeth Knox is the author of eight novels for adults and one of New Zealand's most successful writers - she lives in Wellington with her husband and son. Daylight has had critics in the US comparing Knox to the Queen of the vampire novelists saying Daylight is "on a par with the best Anne Rice has to offer" and calling it an "illuminating tour-de-force", while Metro called it "mysterious, thrilling, erotic". Her 2001 novel Black Oxen was published simultaneously in the US, the UK and New Zealand and was a NZ number one bestseller. Billie's Kiss made a spectacular entry into the NZ bestseller list on the strength of one afternoon's sales and then shot straight to number one in the following list. Billie's Kiss was shortlisted in the 2002 Montana NZ Book Awards.

GORDON, Gaelyn, (1939 - 1997) wrote fiction for children and adults. Gaelyn Gordon was born in Hawera in 1939. She taught English and Drama at Hamilton Girls' High School until 1987, when she took a year's sick leave and used the time to write, which she continued to do full-time until her death in 1997. Gordon wrote that she enjoyed the process of letting her writing unfold and being surprised by the results: 'which is why I haven't gone back to teaching. I know the people I teach are going to turn out to be adults, and often have a fairly good idea of what sort of adults they'll be; I haven't the faintest idea what the story I'm writing at the moment is going to turn out to be.'

BOHAN, Edmund (1935 - ) is an historian and fiction writer who is a leading authority on 19th century New Zealand political history. He is also a former professional singer who, during a long career of over forty years, sang all over the world and released a number of commercial recordings. Bohan's first published books, written while he was touring Britain as a singer, were historical novels for junior readers, The Writ of Green Wax (1990), and The Buckler (1972). During his time in the UK he was also commissioned to write a centennial history of the Incorporated Society of Musicians The First Hundred Years (1982). On his return to New Zealand in 1987 Bohan decided to devote more time to writing and historical research. The first book published after his return was the acclaimed biography Edward Stafford: New Zealand's First Statesman (1994). The Daily Telegraph writes: "The book is essential reading for all interested in New Zealand history, philosophy or politics." The Nelson Evening Mail describes it as "a tour de force, one of the finest political biographies of the last decade."

Dame Ngaio Marsh DBE (April 23, 1895 - February 18, 1982), born Edith Ngaio Marsh was an author and theatre director from New Zealand. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900, but she is believed to have been born in Christchurch on 23 April 1899. Marsh worked as an actress, theatrical producer and interior decorator before publishing her first novel, A Man Lay Dead, in 1934. This, and all subsequent novels, featured her series character Chief-Inspector Roderick Alleyn. 

Our family were all born in New Zealand and now live in Queensland, the sunshine state of Australia. Nobody else in my family writes, but in the latter part of the 19th century my antecedents published newspapers and were authors. Blood will out, as they say. I've always written - poetry and short stories as a child; then later on in life as our kids grew older I began writing novels, probably to counteract the stultifying boredom of being a legal executive.

Lindy Kelly is a former event rider herself and has maintained her love of and interest in horses on the family farm in Nelson. Lindy is also a journalist, poet and playwright.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Jennifer Mortimer holds degrees in English Literature, Philosophy and Information Science. She is now a project manager for Weta Digital in Wellington - the people behind the special effects for The Hobbit, Avatar and Ironman. Jennifer and her husband, Paul, and their two daughters live in Wellington, New Zealand.

Geoffrey Robert is a New Zealand-born author, journalist and former communications advisor. He is also a father who cares about the state of the planet his children will inherit. He has travelled widely, witnessing first hand the swelling disparities in wealth and influence at the root of many of the world's problems. From the dazzle of Times Square to the clogged alleyways of India, the orderly streets of London to the chaotic bus stations of Kenya, the bountiful swagger of Sydney to the dirt floor poverty of Timor Leste. His love of the outdoors and passion for keeping things natural has taken him to ancient mountain trails in the Sinai, elephant watering holes in southern Africa and to the primeval rainforests of his homeland.

Dinah Holman QSO 1988 for public services to heritage, MA, DIP TP is a nationally known heritage planning consultant and author. She was chair of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (1986-90); executive director of the Auckland Heritage Trust (1985-89); a member of the Auckland Institute and Museum Council (1991-94), and a member of the Auckland Library Heritage Trust (1998- ). She received the NZPI Distinguished Service Award in 1992 She is the A.R.D. Fairburn Literary Executor.

Robert Philip is an independent New Zealand author. He was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1945. After a career in the advertising business he began freelance writing in 1983 and has been a self-employed writer ever since. Gradually he reduced his commercial writing to dedicate himself to his own writing, preferring to write and publish his own work which is mostly (but not only) about New Zealand and New Zealanders. He has travelled extensively throughout New Zealand, Australia, Britain (where he lived and worked), Europe, Asia and Japan, as well as the United States (where he worked in advertising). He says he loves all good writing from all eras. His other interests lie firmly in the arts: art, music, opera, ballet and the theatre. He plays the saxophone and the ukulele. On the other hand he also loves rugby league and has supported the Warriors since their foundation in 1995. He lives with his wife, who is also a writer, in Greenlane, Auckland. Robert welcomes comments and feedback and is happy to answer questions from readers and to speak about his writing and his books to schools, book clubs and writing groups within a convenient reach of Auckland.

My goal is to give you stories to transport you to another time, another place, where you can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, and delight in a happy ending. I’ve been telling stories all my life: making up serial tales to amuse my friends and children, imagining sequels to books that have moved me and left me wanting more, occasionally submitting short stories to magazines and the radio, starting more than a dozen novels set in different times and places. I have devoted most of the last forty years to a career in commercial writing and raising a large family (most recently as grandmother-in-residence while a daughter was out of action for three years). Me and my own personal romantic hero, with whom I have shared those forty+ years, now live with two cats and frequent visitors in a small town in rural New Zealand. I wrote and published my first historical romance in 2014, and now have the wind in my sails and a head full of strong determined heroines, heroes with the sense to appreciate them, and villains you’ll love to loathe.

After a career at universities in England, author David Briggs now lives in New Zealand.

Mike Riddell is a wordsmith and raconteur. Screenwriter, novelist, playwright and poet, Mike mines the vaults of the psyche in search of stories which are capable of helping us embrace our humanity. From deep in the heart of New Zealand he lives and writes and dreams in glorious obscurity, inspired by the wonderland which surrounds him.

Mike Ponder, a NZ author and painter, now living in Queensland Australia, has had a varied career. During his quarter century of professional painting he has exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and internationally and produced two books of his works. Forestry, wine and olive oil have also played an important role in Mike's career. He has forestry interests in the Marlborough Sounds and in 1987 Mike and his wife Di purchased some land on the outskirts of Blenheim and planted their first olives and grapes the following year. When Ponder Estate was sold in 2002 they had a national and international reputation for their wines, and were known as pioneers in the development of the olive oil industry in NZ. And now Mike has turned his hand to fiction writing and Random House Australia is proudly publishing his foray into thriller writing.

Gary has always had a love of the environment learning how to grow plants and vegetables organically from a very young age under the tutelage of his father's gardener. Being bought up around family dogs and his own pet Dutch rabbit engendered an ongoing love of animals.  The turbulent British political scene during the 1980's saw his interest rise in politics. During these early years, he started to write his first novel and many poems.  Pressures of work, a growing family and increased worldwide travel for international companies saw his writing put aside, time at home spent with family and long country walks with wife and Border collie.   A holiday to see the land of his father led the family to take up permanent residence in New Zealand. Following the life-changing diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, Gary once again took to writing as a way of keeping his mind active and undertook a creative writing course to hone his skills which he passed with distinction.  With his love of the environment and interest in the short term view of politicians, The Charles Langham Series was born. Gary is a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors.

Richard Ward is a former university lecturer who know enjoys growing macadamia nuts and fruit in an orchard on the far north of New Zealand.

In a previous life Ann Neville was a nurse, and a secondary school music and mathematics teacher. As a writer, most of her work has been non-fiction. However, in 2011, she completed a course in creative writing with Mandy Hager through Whitireia Polytechnic. The resultant book was short-listed for the Tom Fitzgibbon Award.

Derek Hansen was born in England and at the age of four convinced his parents to emigrate to New Zealand.  His writing talent took him back to London in the sixties where he rose through the ranks of one of the city's top advertising agencies.  Lured to Australia, Derek spent the next 25 years making ads while wishing he was writing novels.  His Lunch with the Generals was a bestseller, followed by Lunch with Mussolini, Sole Survivor and many others.

Paul lives in the city where all of his novels are set – Christchurch, New Zealand. For as long as he can remember Paul has always wanted to be a writer. His short stories written at school always concerned his teachers, and his High School report card stated there was a time and a place for his kind of writing – and school wasn’t it. At nineteen, Paul began work on his first few novels will never be allowed out of the bottom drawer.

CATRAN, Ken (1944 - ) is a children's writer and scriptwriter who has written for some of New Zealand's best-loved television series including "Close to Home" and "Shortland Street".

Tattooed, pierced and dreadlocked, Steve Malley is a writer, graphic novelist and professional artist. He is an American expatriate currently living in New Zealand and, once upon a time, a bit of a scrapper...

Richard Newsome was born in the small New Zealand river town of Wanganui.  Sensing there was no future for him there, he migrated with his family to Australia at the age of two.  His first job after leaving school was as a cadet journalist on the local newspaper where he honed his craft by chasing ambulances and police cars around the streets of the Gold Coast.  After stints on other newspapers and in radio and television with the ABC, he undertook university studies and graduated in economics at the University of Queensland. Richard started work with an international strategy consultancy in Boston, where he learned that it was possible to work for 20 hours days on a regular basis.  He returned to Australia and took up a position with a multinational media company in Sydney. Several promotions later, he was in the head office, overseeing corporate affairs and communications.  This gave him the chance to observe several real-life billionaires at close quarters and he grew to understand their entertainingly obsessive ways. After several years in this environment, Richard took the decision to step off the corporate hurdy-gurdy and take on the role of stay-at-home Dad to help raise his three children aged 14, 11 and 4.  Whilst still working part time and making school lunches, he found time to write The Billionaire's Curse again discovering that it is possible to work 20 hour days on a regular basis.

Lucy Sussex was born in New Zealand in 1957. She has degrees in English and Librarianship from Monash University, and is a freelance researcher, editor and writer. She has published widely, writing anything from literary criticism to horror and detective stories. In addition she is a literary archaeologist, rediscovering and republishing the nineteenth-century Australian crime writers Mary Fortune and Ellen Davitt. Her short story, `My Lady Tongue' won a Ditmar (Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award) in 1988. In 1994 she was a judge for the international Tiptree award, which honours speculative fiction exploring notions of gender. Her first adult novel, The Scarlet Rider, is about biography, Victorian detective fiction, voodoo and a ghost.

Paddy Richardson has written two collections of short stories, Choices and If We Were Lebanese, many of which have been broadcast on Radio New Zealand.  Her work has been highly commended in the Katherine Mansfield and Sunday Star-Times Awards and her previous novel, The Company of a Daughter, was written during her year as the Burns Fellow in 1997.  Paddy lives in Dunedin where she writes and teaches part-time courses in creative writing.

Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, John Sligo attended Otago University before going on to study at Cambridge University.  After University he worked for the United Nations, and more recently has worked as a film and television journalist, and is a freelance writer.  Sligo now lives in Sydney.

Born, Auckland New Zealand, 1929. Resident and citizen of Australia. Author of : Advertising Without Tears; Money For Jam; business books: It Could Be Verse; humorous verse, published  Australia. The Mouse Is Dead; fiction; From Bad To Verse; humorous verse published in NZ   

Patricia Freda Whale (26 May 1918 – 2 June 1996), best known by the pen name Freda Bream, was a teacher and writer who was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freda_Bream

Chris Niles was born in New Zealand and has worked as a TV and radio journalist in New Zealand, Australia, Britain and Europe. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

Laurie Mantell is described by the Oxford History of New Zealand literature as one of the most distinguished crime writers in the past twenty years. Her previous books, all published by Victor Gollancz (London), are Murder in Fancy Dress, A Murder or Three, Murder and Chips, Murder to Burn, and Murder in Vain. She lives in Wainuiomata, Wellington. Mates is Laurie Mantell's sixth published crime novel.

Sandy McCutcheon (born 1947) is a prominent Australian author, playwright, actor, journalist and broadcaster. Sandy McCutcheon was born in Christchurch, New Zealand which, however, he did not discover until he was over fifty years old. He was adopted at a very young age and spent several years looking for traces of his family around Europe, before finding relatives living in New Zealand. Incidentally, his adoption papers, uncovered in 1997, stated that he was born with the name Brian David Parry. He moved to Australia in 1970 and now lives in Brisbane. He spends time each year in the city of Fes in Morocco where he owns a house with his wife the photographer Suzanna Clarke.

Paul Little lives in Auckland, New Zealand. He has written for radio and television and has been chief sub-editor of the Australian Women's Weekly, and editor of Metro and the New Zealand Listener. He was named Editorial Writer of the year in 1995 and was a finalist in 1996 and 1997.

Paul Thomas was born in the UK and grew up in New Zealand. He graduated from the University of Auckland and subsequently worked in journalism and public relations in Auckland, London, Toulouse and Sydney. He won the Australian Ned Kelly Award for his first book, Dirty Laundry. All of his books have been published internationally to widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. A full time writer, Paul has also worked in newspapers and advertising. He lives in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, Australia with his journalist wife.

David completed an M.Sc. in Astronomy in 1993. His thesis was entitled A photometric and spectroscopic analysis of the southern extremely hydrogen deficient binary stars . He then completed a Ph.D. in Atmospheric, Ionospheric and Space Physics here at Canterbury, still within the department, and went to work for the Treasury for two years. He is now Project Manager for climateprediction.net at the University of Oxford in the UK. He is the author of the satirical novel Light Speed.

Jennifer Fulton is a lesbian romance writer who writes mysteries under the name of name of Rose Beecham.

Stella Duffy was born in London and brought up in Tokoroa New Zealand. She is also an actor, improvisor, comedian and occasional radio presenter. She now lives in London and is married to writer Shelley Silas. For complete biographical details please wander off to her site http://www.tartcity.com/intro.html#stella

Dorothy Enid Eden (1912-1982) grew up on an isolated farm in New Zealand's South Island. She worked for some years as a legal secretary, but always wanted to be a writer. She wrote children's stories for a local farming publication and at age 21 published her first story for adults. These early writings were published under the name of Ena Eden. Her first book was published in 1940. She travelled extensively after the war, settling in London in the early 1950s, eventually becoming a full time writer. Eden's books have included family sagas, thrillers, gothic fiction and historical novels. By 1980 she was among the ten best-selling authors in the world, and was translated into many other languages. At least one book, ''Crow Hollow'', was filmed.

ELDRED-GRIGG, Steven (1952- ), is a social historian, fiction writer and autobiographer. His father came from a wealthy Canterbury sheep-farming family; his mother from a poor working-class family in south Christchurch. He was born in the Grey Valley but raised in prosperous suburban Christchurch. He attended Shirley BHS, Canterbury University (MA in history, 1975) and the Australian National University (PhD in history, 1978). Since then he has been a full-time writer based in Christchurch. Born on the back seat of a speeding taxi, the young writer grew up in suburban Christchurch. After graduating with a doctorate in history from the Australian National University the writer first became known as the author of A Southern Gentry, a book which has now sold more copies than almost any other history published in New Zealand. Quick, vivid, democratic - it leads the reader onto his other lively works of New Zealand history: A New History of Canterbury, Pleasures of the Flesh, Working People and The Rich.