New Zealand

I spent my childhood on a small, dreamy fishing island close to Hamburg, Germany. From there I spent years in Switzerland and The Netherlands. For the last thirty years, I’ve called New Zealand my home.

Once my three children were grown, I studied psychotherapy and worked for 25 years as a trauma specialist and started writing. Over the years I’ve learned that life is a bumpy ride full of highs and lows. It’s having friends and loved ones to celebrate with that makes the highs special, and knowing one isn’t the only one who struggles makes the lows tolerable.

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.