Alice Soper was born and raised in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, the youngest of her parents first batch of children. For years, Alice would give out her opinions for free. Dishing them up in carparks after rugby training, in monologues to tired friends or while shaking her fist on the internet. Until one day, she was asked to write her thoughts down and that became her job. Her strongest held opinion is that people loved women's sport the way she does, we'd all be better off.

Alice appears as part of our Young Readers Programme 2025.

To have My Three Rivers published has been a successful family achievement and a great tribute to Gran! I've been really pleased with my involvement with Supporting Families, now merged with Yellow Brick Road. But, of course, my greatest achievement, and Sue's has been our three children.

Anika Moa is a wild, wonderful and wacky performer from Aotearoa. Anika began her career in music and since then has spread her wings and moved into waiata for bubbas, television mahi, radio mahi, comedy, acting, podcasts and is recently recording her ninth studio album entitled Kōtiro.  She has one children’s book to her name The Witch of Maketu and the Bleating Lambs and is in the throes of writing her second children’s pukapuka.  Her biggest success is being a māmā to her four tamariki. She is a strong advocate for Māori, takatāpui, non-binary and her LGBTQIA+ whānau. Toitu te Tiriti!

Annette Te Imaima Sykes (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Mākino) has devoted her life to championing Māori rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Annette’s distinguished legal career spans nearly four decades, focusing on Māori interests and constitutional justice. She has served on numerous boards including Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao and Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd, and has been an adjunct professor at Auckland University's Faculty of Law. She participated in the Fisheries Settlement, arguing the case at the Privy Council. Currently she advises the Ministry for the Environment on Māori rights in freshwater management and serves as a trustee for the Crown Forest Rental Trust. Annette manages her own law firm in Rotorua mentoring young professionals. In recognition of her significant contributions to the law, Annette has recently been honoured with two prestigious awards — the Access to Justice Award conferred by the New Zealand and Australian Bar Association, and a Lifetime Membership Award from Te Hunga Rōia Māori, the Māori Law Society.

Apirana Taylor (Ngati Porou, Te Whanau Apanui, and Ngati Ruanui and Pakeha) was awarded the 2024 Prime Minister's Award for Literature - in poetry.

He has travelled nationally and internationally reading his poetry and taking workshops. Apirana has had seven books of poetry, two novels, plays and short stories published.

Barbara Dreaver is an award-winning Pacific Correspondent at 1 News and has been a journalist for more than three decades. Of I-Kiribati, Cook Islands and NZ descent, she has lived and worked across the region in print, radio and television. Her in-depth investigations have resulted in legislation and policy changes, arrests and positive changes to individual circumstances. She has been detained and banned from Fiji during the military takeover there and taken into custody in Nauru for challenging leaders. She was named an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit (ONZM) in the 2024 New Years Honours for Investigative Journalism and Services to Pacific Communities. She has won multiple awards including Reporter of the Year at the 2022 NZTV Awards. She is currently writing her memoir and was one of two finalists in the CLNZ/NZSA Writers Award 2024.

Becky Manawatu is a West Coast author and journalist. Her debut novel, Auē, won the 2020 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize, the MitoQ Best First Book Award and the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, and five years on is regarded as a modern classic, with editions published around the world. The sequel Kataraina (2024) was longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize.

Bob Francis is the former Mayor of Masterton District Council for 21 years.

He has had significant roles in Health, was the former chair Wairarapa DHB, and Chair of Masterton Medical. He’s had previous roles in Conservation, Chair Pukaha Mount Bruce, Arts, Aviation and numerous community organizations.  Bob was awarded the Ryman Healthcare Senior NZ of the year in 2024.

Brannavan Gnanalingam is a novelist and lawyer based in Wellington. He's published eight novels through Lawrence & Gibson. He is unashamedly a political writer, and he’s most proud of the fact that his books have led to some tangible change, like inspiring protests and submissions to Parliament.

Carl Shuker is the author of The Royal Free, A Mistake (shortlisted for best book of fiction at the Ockham Book Awards and adapted for film in 2024), Anti Lebanon, Three Novellas for a Novel, The Lazy Boys, and The Method Actors, which won the Prize in Modern Letters, then the richest prize in the world for an emerging writer. He also works in healthcare, first for the British Medical Journal and now for the Health Quality & Safety Commission.

Chanelle is a neurodivergent author and advocate. They are a late diagnosed autistic, dyslexic and ADHDer, having received their first diagnosis at 21. Chanelle is passionate about creating spaces of understanding and inclusion and hopes to empower others to live their lives to their full potential.

Chanelle appears as part of our Young Readers Programme 2025.

Cheryl Gallaway is a multidisciplinary artist and designer. Founder of letterpress studio Bower & Book and a co-founder of The Tramping Gently Club Art Collective. Cheryl has given lectures on Typography in Wellington, London and Rotterdam, and enjoys multimedia publishing, typographic, papermaking and printmaking collaborations. Instagram: @bower.and.book

Chris Tse is the Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2022-25. His collections include the award-winning How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes, and the Lambda Literary Award finalist Super Model Minority. In 2024, he was a fellow of the University of Iowa's International Writing Programme.

Claire Baylis's first novel Dice (Allen&Unwin) won the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Best First novel award and was shortlisted for the Australian Ned Kelly Best International Crime Novel. Dice was written as part of her PhD in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters and was included on the Dean’s List for academic excellence. Claire was a law academic for 12 years at Victoria University Te Herenga Waka before moving to Rotorua and turning to fiction writing and jury research.

Claire Mabey is author of The Raven's Eye Runaways, founder of Verb Wellington and books editor at The Spinoff. She is mum to Charlie and lives on the wild south coast of Wellington.

Clare has enjoyed a career spanning 25 years in Visual Effects, starting out at The Jim Henson Company in London and working at Wētā FX in New Zealand since 2001 including roles in Production, Content Creation, Crew Management and VFX Editorial. Author of Imagination on Screen: 20 years of Weta Digital (2014) and the Director and Producer of the award-winning short film, an adaptation of Joy Cowley’s short story, The Silk (2012). Writer, Director and Producer of the short film Tango (2008), and Director and Producer of two music videos for The Black Seeds and Sambassadors, alongside her Visual Effects work Clare directs her own creative projects.

Cristina Sanders is writer, hill runner and tall ship sailor in no particular order. Shipwrecks are a particular passion. Fascinated by New Zealand’s early colonial period, her four best-selling books of historical fiction have all ended up featuring a character falling into deep waters at some point. In her spare time, she plants trees.

Damien Wilkins' latest novel, Delirious, was named the Best Book of 2024 by Newsroom. He has won the NZ Book Award, a Whiting Writer's Award, and was the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow in 2008. He is an Arts Foundation Laureate. Damien is the Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.

Dinithi Nelum Bowatte is a PhD student and occasional writer at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University in Te Papaioea Palmerston North. Her academic and creative interests include writing about health and disease, wildlife, race, and feminism. Her work has appeared in the Pantograph Punch and the Cuba Press's Visible Cities - Lockdown to liberation, stress to sustainability.

Donovan Bixley ONZM  is a Taupō based picture book creator with more than 130 titles spanning everything from the lives of Shakespeare, Mozart and Leonardo da Vinci to the hilarious hijinks of pussycats in planes in his Flying Furballs series. He is most well-known for his bestselling pre-school books such as The Wheels on the Bus and The Great Kiwi ABC Book, as well as his colourful and humorous retellings of the legends of Māui. Among his many accolades, Donovan has been the recipient of the Mallinson Rendel Illustrator’s Laureate Award, and in 2021 he was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to New Zealand children’s books.

During his leadership of the Waitangi Tā (Sir) Edward Taihākurei has authored and overseen the recording of an exceptional body of indigenous knowledge and history, drawn from working alongside senior tribal leaders with specialist knowledge of Maori law and custom. Tā Taihākurei authored a paper on Custom Law in 1994, which has been an authority for students and practitioners in the Māori Land Court and Waitangi Tribunal, and recently and in 2017, a paper on Māori Law written in support of the claim to the Waitangi Tribunal on Freshwater and Geothermal Resources. Tā was Chair of the Waitangi Tribunal and the Chief Judge at the Māori Land Court. After being Chair of the NZ Māori Council for many years, Tā Taihākurei is currently Pou of the Council. He is dedicated to providing evidence and supporting the Põrirua-ki Manawatu Waitangi claim to the Waitangi Tribunal.

Fiona Kidman, DNZM, OBE, Legion d'Honneur, began to write seriously when she was in her early twenties, which is now longer ago than she cares to admit. Writing has been her passion, her profession, and her lifelong commitment. She is the author of about 35 works of fiction, memoir and poetry, and worked as a screenwriter for several years. Her latest novel, This Mortal Boy won several prizes, including the Jann Medlicott Ockham Prize for Fiction in 2019. Her work is translated into several languages. Her honours include a damehood DNZM, OBE and the French Legion of Honour.

Gareth and Louise Ward are co-owners of Wardini Books in Hawke's Bay, and co-authors of The Bookshop Detectives series, combining their ancient knowledge of policing with their more recent bookselling experience. Louise reads, writes, reviews and runs and Gareth writes, builds things and loves a model train. They are united in mutual adoration of their dog, Stevie Wonder.

Gillian Candler is an award-winning author of books for children about New Zealand nature. These include the best-selling At the Beach: explore and discover the New Zealand seashore, Whose Beak is This? and New Zealand Nature Heroes. Her passion for both tramping and the wildlife of Aotearoa is woven through her most recent book Mia & Leo Go Wild, a tramping tale written in collaboration with the NZ Mountain Safety Council. Mia & Leo Go Wild was a 2024 Top 50 Whitcoulls Children's Book.

Herewini Ammunson (Ngāti Moe, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, Rangitāne, Te Arawa, Vaimoso) was brought up alongside his family marae at Papawai Pā just outside Greytown and continues to play an active ahi kaa role along with this extended family. He is passionate about te ao Māori, te reo Māori, and environmental initiatives, aiming to use his legal expertise to benefit iwi, community, marae, and hapū. A former Ngārimu VC and 28th Māori Battalion Memorial Scholar, he is also a graduate of Te Pōkaitara, Kahungunu academy of excellence in te reo and tikanga. Herewini currently chairs Papawai Marae Trust, he works as a lawyer at a kaupapa Māori law firm in Wellington.

Ron Mark has been a milk boy, opossum trapper, scrub cutter, horse rider, professional soldier and officer, mechanical engineer, returned serviceman, small businessman, lead negotiator for te Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tamaki Nui a Rua Treaty settlement, 6-term member of parliament, Minister of Defence and Minister for Veterans Affairs, and a humanitarian aid worker in Ukraine. He is the current Mayor of Carterton and has served in that position twice before. In February 2025, Ron Mark was inducted as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.  He is the grandfather of 14 and great grandfather of one. He is also an amateur military historian; but most importantly, Ron just wants to be a country music star.

James Belich is a leading New Zealand and global historian, who taught at the Universities of Auckland and Wellington until 2011. He has recently retired home to New Zealand after a late and long OE as Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History at Oxford University. His books include The New Zealand Wars, 1986 (made into a TV documentary series in 1998), a two-volume history of the New Zealanders, (Making Peoples, 1996, and Paradise Reforged, 2001), Replenishing The Earth (2009) and The World the Plague Made (2022) which was shortlisted for the Wolfson Prize in 2023.

Joanna Kidman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa) is Professor of Māori Education and Co-Director of He Whenua Taurikura: Centre for Countering and Preventing Violent Extremism at Victoria University of Wellington. She loves Wellington's eastern coastline and, in the weekends, can often be found walking along the shore or peering into rock pools.

John Campbell loves reading. But that doesn’t pay very well, so he earns a living as TVNZ’s Chief Correspondent. He has a 30-year career as a broadcast journalist in radio and television. In 2017 he was named Global Radio Presenter of the Year at the Association for International Broadcasting Awards in London.

John Connell is a two-time Walkley-winning journalist, award-winning documentary producer and number 1 bestseller and award-winning author of The Cow Book, The Running Book and his latest 12 sheep was an instant number 1 bestseller. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Granard booktown Festival in Ireland. He farms with his family on their organic beef and sheep farm in the Irish midlands.

Katherine Robinson is Editor/Publisher of the region’s own Wairarapa Lifestyle – now 18 years in publication.  Katherine trained as a journalist in Aotearoa New Zealand, and found her niche in magazine publishing in London, working as a writer/editor for Redwood Publishing, the BBC and American Express among others.  Since taking over Wairarapa Lifestyle in 2017, her enthusiasm for the region and its community has found an outlet in producing this well-loved quarterly.

Kiri Allan (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi, Tūwharetoa, Te Rarawa) is a former cabinet minister in the Ardern government. She held portfolios in Justice, Conservation, Emergency Management and associate portfolios in Finance, Transport, Arts, Culture and Heritage as well as being a Labour Member of Parliament for the East Coast. A former lawyer, Kiri is a director of Kōmaru Ltd, a renewable energy company focused on supporting landowners and KLA Ltd, a consultancy firm providing advisory services. She is currently under contract with Penguin writing an autobiography due to be published in 2025.

Dr. Koenraad Kuiper is Professor Emeritus at the University of Canterbury. He has written or edited over 15 books, including five books of poetry, and over 100 book chapters and journal articles. He is happy with all his publications.

Kristy is passionate about community engagement, working with communities to bring out positive narratives, and believes events can contribute extraordinary benefits, community change and vibrancy. Kristy is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Shepherdess magazine, and is Festival Director of The Shepherdess Muster, with a professional background in public health, policy and community engagement in rural and remote areas across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Kristy holds a Bachelor of Social Science in Asia Pacific Governance and Development and a Master of Agriculture.

Lars is one of Norway’s most acclaimed authors, with more than 2 million books sold, and has been translated to 24 languages. His first international bestseller was Norwegian Wood, a non-fiction book about the lore and joy of forests and heating with wood. First and foremost, he is a novelist, and the final volume of his trilogy The Sister Bells has just been released in NZ. The trilogy spans 1500 pages, starts in 1880 and ends in 1945, and combines Norwegian folklore and mythology with the drama of the modern novel.

Laura Williamson is the editor and co-founder of 1964: mountain culture / aotearoa. Her book The Bike and Beyond: Life on two wheels in Aotearoa New Zealand is out now as part of the BWB Text series.

Liz Mellish MNZM is a Trustee on the Featherston Booktown Board. She is the Chair of the Palmerston North Māori Reserve Trust and the Card Reserve Artificial Surface in Featherston. She also maintains directorships across a diverse range of organisations including Metlifecare Palmerston North Retirement Village, Wharewaka O Poneke Ltd, Hikoikoi Management and Haukawakawa Ltd. In her more than 40 years of living in Featherston, Liz has witnessed much change in our town and is deeply connected to the creativity and warmth of the heart of our community.

Mandy Hager is a multi-award-winning author for both adults and young adults, including the 2012 Beatson Fellowship, the 2014 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship and the 2015 Waikato University Writer in Residence. In 2015 her novel Singing Home the Whale was named the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year. In 2019 she received the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal, for life-time achievement and a distinguished contribution to New Zealand’s literature for young people. She lives on the Kapiti Coast and is the proud granny of Leo, Luna and Sunny.

Author of The Political Years, Still Counting, Counting for Nothing. Former MP, feminist economist, farmer, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy. Now retired to the Far North, working on gardening, swimming, knitting and ukulele skills.

Mark Amery has been a champion for the arts in print and radio media for over 30 years, working as a broadcaster, arts critic, writer and editor and is cohost of RNZ programme Culture 101. Mark is the former director of the national theatre agency Playmarket, has worked in festivals and advised many arts development agencies. In 2009 he cofounded Letting Space, a public art agency interested in the dynamic possibilities for new forms of public art in engendering social and community change - the subject of a 2023 book he coedited, Urgent Moments, published by Massey University Press.

Mary McCallum is a novelist and poet and a publisher with The Cuba Press and Mākaro Press. She lives in the Wairarapa and Wellington, and is a Featherston Booktown trustee and chair of Karukatea Festival programme committee.

Matt and Sarah Brown are New Zealand-based advocates, authors, and communicators dedicated to ending domestic violence. Co-founders of She Is Not Your Rehab, they work to redefine masculinity and support intergenerational healing. Their bestselling book has impacted thousands and is now followed by their children’s book, This Is Not Yours to Carry. Committed to making mental health support accessible, they developed innerBoy, a free app designed to help men process trauma and begin their healing journeys. Their work and campaigns have reached millions worldwide, earning them MNZM honours and a Commonwealth Points of Light award.

Host of Newstalk ZB afternoons, previously host of the Matt and Jerry Breakfast show on Radio Hauraki. Cricket and Rugby commentator for the ACC. Television and movie producer and writer. Appeared in numerous tv shows. Including Back of the Y, Balls of Steel (UK), MTV Stunt Night, Traitors, Taskmaster, Game of Two Halves and the feature film The Devil Dared Me To.

Mel Parsons grew up on a sheep and beef farm at Cape Foulwind, West Coast - riding horses on the beach, playing netball, and being a typical Kiwi farm kid. Now based in Lyttelton, the multi award-winning singer songwriter & international touring artist is firmly established as one of Aotearoa's songwriting stars. Recent tours with Crowded House, The Teskey Brothers, & Chris Isaak, along with a Vancouver Folk Festival appearance made 2024 a watershed year for Parsons. The 2020 NZ Folk Artist of the Year's 6th studio album Sabotage hit #2 in the NZ Albums Chart and was heralded by Rolling Stone Australia with 4 stars: ”Sabotage is pure triumph”. “Parsons and her band are world class - immaculate renditions of immaculate songs” muzic.net.nz.

Michael Fitzsimons is a professional writer and was co-founder of the Wellington communications company, FitzBeck Creative. He has published three books of poetry, his latest High Wire was published by Cuba Press and launched in February this year. He lives with his wife Rose in Seatoun on a hill overlooking the harbour.

Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) is a writer, poet and performer who was born in Sāmoa and raised in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. Her poetry has been widely published. She has an MA from the IIML at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington and won the 2022 Biggs Family Prize in Poetry for Black Sugarcane, her first book. She lives in Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay.

Natalie Coates (Ngati Awa and Ngati Hine) is a barrister and currently the co-president of Te Hunga Roia Maori o Aotearoa / the Maori Law Society. Most recently, her spare time has been occupied writing submissions on various pieces of legislation. She is most proud of her 7-year old daughter, Hiwaiterangi.

Noelle is from Cork, Ireland. She started her radio career in Auckland in 2003. Since then she's interviewed everyone from James Cameron to Margaret Atwood and the Dalai Llama. Her memoir Grand won Best First Book at the New Zealand book awards in 2023. She was Writer in Residence at Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters in the same year.

Oscar Kightley is most proud that since coming from Samoa as a kid he has managed to turn a love of reading at Primary school into a whole life and career telling stories. Whether it be in plays on stage, TV or the big screen. And these stories have led to other cool things for him, the people who've worked on them, the audience and his community of Aotearoa.

Owen Marshall CNZM is a fiction writer and poet who has published or edited over 35 books. Awards include the CNZM and the Prime Minister's Award for Achievement in fiction. The University of Canterbury awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters and appointed him an adjunct professor.

Journalist focused on positive news and solutions.  25 years reporting. Three years sober. Paddy has had issues: depression, burnout, alcoholism, redundancy. He got through them with connection, optimism, purpose and change. Paddy Gower is a journalist, documentary maker and author. Paddy currently produces this is This Is The F#$%ing News for Stuff. He is focused on positive news and solutions. Paddy has been living in the Wellington region since he came down here to join the Parliamentary Press Gallery in 2008, and has a longer connection dating back to his days at Victoria University in the late 1990s

Paora Ammunson (Ngāti Moe, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, Rangitāne, Te Arawa, Ngāti Rarua) has served his family marae for the past forty years. He is the current chair of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui ā Rua Trust and has previously served on the South Wairarapa District Council and as Chair of the Wairarapa Rugby Union. He has held senior roles in education and government and is the interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor Māori at Massey University.

Peter Biggs, known to his friends as Biggsy, has had a 25-year distinguished career in the advertising industry, leading award-winning agencies in New Zealand and Australia. He has had a significant involvement in the arts sector for many years, including being chair of the Arts Council of New Zealand (Creative NZ) from 1999 to 2006, a member of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Board, a trustee of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, a member of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Board and a founding board member of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne. He was chair of Read NZ Te Pou Muramura from 2010 to 2021 and is currently Chair Emeritus. He is a founding trustee of the Featherston Booktown Trust and became chair in 2018. A generous arts philanthropist, Biggsy was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2013.

Peter Whiteford is a retired academic, having been a Professor of English Literature at Victoria University. He has published work on a number of New Zealand writers, including Ursula Bethell, John Mulligan, Eileen Duggan, Vincent O'Sullivan and Katherine Mansfield. He is currently working on a book on the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

After throwing himself into Labour Party activism from his late teens, including an unremarkable three years as a Porirua City Councillor, he came out as gay in 1997 and bailed to Melbourne, where he could pursue his twin compulsions of politics and alcohol in roughly equal measures. After sobering up in 2006 and in the years since, he has been a freelance writer and strategic communications specialist, including three-year stints in New York and Kigali, Rwanda. Running out of ideas and succumbing to increasingly frequent bouts of depression, he returned to New Zealand in 2018 where he’s been doing bits and bobs, few of note, although co-hosting Booktown podcast with his old mate Shane Te Pou has been a highlight.

Pip Adam is the author of Audition (2023), which was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction; Nothing to See (2020), also shortlisted for the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction; The New Animals (2017), which won the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction; I'm Working on a Building (2013); and the short story collection Everything We Hoped For (2010), which won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction in 2011. She produces the podcast Better off Read.

Ria Hall (Tauranga Moana, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Porou) is a māmā, a creative, a powerful live performer and speaker. Winning awards and critical acclaim, she crafts an experience that showcases her enormous vocal range and ability to effortlessly transition between styles. She continues to push the boundaries through all aspects of her life, challenging the status quo in a way that is empowering for the collective.

Richard Harman has been a journalist for 50 years; 40 years of that covering politics; in the Press Gallery for TVNZ, then with his own production company which founded Agenda and then The Nation and made a number of political documentaries. Now in semi-retirement he runs the POLITIK website and newsletter. He is a former Press Gallery chair and is now a life member. He is a frequent visitor to the Wairarapa to fly fish the Ruamahanga and Waiohine.

Richard Langston is a director for Country Calendar and he is the author of six books of poetry, the most recent Five O'Clock Shadows was published by the Cuba Press, and the book about alternative New Zealand music, Pull Down the Shades, Garage Fanzine 1984-86 (Hozac Press). He is currently working on a book on the legendary Dunedin band, The Clean, to be published by Auckland University Press in November.

Richard Prebble is a former barrister and member of Parliament, and now an author and columnist. From 1975–1993 he represented Auckland Central for Labour and held a number of ministerial roles. He was Minister of State Owned Enterprises (SOE) in the fourth Labour Government (1984) and together with Roger Douglas, then Minister of Finance, was responsible for many of the 'Rogernomics' reforms. When he lost his seat in 1993 he spent some years persuing consultancy roles before joining Roger Douglas to establish ACT New Zealand. In 1996 he won the Wellington Central seat and was leader of the party until he retired from Parliament in 2004. At the end of 2024 he was appointed to the Waitangi Tribunal but resigned shortly after saying he 'would not participate in turning Te Tiriti into a socialist manifesto'.

Labour MP for Hastings 1993 then Tukituki 2005 left Parliament 2011 was Senior Government Whip, Cabinet Minister and Assistant Speaker, nine years on Hawke's Bay Regional Council, Deputy Chair and Chair, also Chief Crown Negotiator for a number of Treaty settlements. Proud of helping people as an MP, encouraging HBRC to substantially increase its tree planting program, particularly riparian and wetlands. Helping achieve Treaty settlements.

Rob Kennedy’s papermaking pursuits stem from an interest in land-use change and developing productivity values from conservation and native biodiversity. On one side he has the joy of being able to provide access to an enjoyable and creative pursuit, and on the other he is proud to have accepted the challenge of developing a business with a strong social enterprise ethic. He finds it a great pleasure to return to Featherston Booktown to connect with interested and creative people, to share the craft and contribute to growing of the native plant economy.

Robin (CRSNZ) was born in Otūmoetai in 1951 and has made/now has time for writing poetry after several previous careers as a teacher, university lecturer, public servant, and migration researcher. Robin loves to read, write, travel, garden, grow food, host friends, family and workawayers, and conserve the Otepua-Paruāuku wetland, where she now lives with her partner. She has published two collections of poetry since 2018: Detritus of Empire (Cuba Press) and A Passage of Yellow Red Birds (Mākaro Press).

Robyn Ramsden is a self-taught bookbinder, classical historian, wahine, wife, mother, occasional gardener, and a climate change educator and activist. Last year she graduated with a BSc in Geology and Science in Society.

Roger Steele has been a publisher at Steele Roberts Aotearoa since 1996. The company has produced over 600 books. Its last book, the collected works of JC Sturm, will appear in late 2025.

romesh dissanayake is a Sri Lankan and Koryo Saram writer, poet and chef from Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, currently based in Melbourne. His work explores ideas of identity, decolonisation and place. His chapbook poetry collection, Favourite Flavour House, is featured in AUP New Poets 10 published by Auckland University Press. His first novel, When I open the shop, was the winner of the 2022 Modern Letters Fiction Prize and is published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. He has also cooked at Mabel's Burmese Eat & Drink Shop and Rita in Art Valley.

Rudiger Mack has a strong interest in anthropology, archaeology and the early contact period of New Zealand and Pacific history and has published articles in various journals. His research over the last 25 years has led to the publication of a book on Abel Tasman’s voyages which offers a fresh perspective on the first encounters with Māori and other indigenous people in the Pacific by bringing together all known Māori and Tongan oral history accounts of the first contact with Europeans. Rudiger says that the research for his book has been fun and exciting, e.g., when he was able to identify the person who copied the well-known illustrations of New Zealand and Tonga into Tasman’s official account of the 1642 voyage.

Ruth Shaw is 78, living and loving every day. Her three small bookshops are so busy she has three part-time workers, plus her wonderful husband Lance who is always there for her. She is extremely proud to have been invited to the Featherston Festival for the fourth (???) time, thank you sincerely.

RNZ Country Life producer and presenter Sally Round loves getting up close with her microphones and using sound to craft her stories which aim to shine a light on the farmers, growers, nature-lovers and many others who make up rural New Zealand. After spending most of her journalism career in news and current affairs, she's enjoyed stepping into her gumboots and taking Country Life's listeners alongside her as she travels around rural New Zealand meeting all sorts of people with a connection to the land. Before joining Country Life, Sally spent more than a decade reporting on the Pacific region for RNZ, travelling to most of the Pacific islands to cover politics, natural disasters and the myriad other issues affecting the region. She spent another decade before that working as a news reporter and presenter in Hong Kong, covering stories around Asia and further afield, including the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the handover of Hong Kong to China.

She was born in Suva, Fiji and moved around the world with her family as a child spending most of her childhood in Hong Kong. Her home now is just outside Martinborough in Wairarapa where she lives with her husband and a boisterous black lab, keeping an eye on a daughter and son who have fled the coop.

Sally Sutton is an award-winning author of children's picture books and junior fiction, best known for her love of rhyme, playful language and fun, mischievous plots. Picture books include the Roadworks series, illustrated by Brian Lovelock and The Cat from Muzzle (with Scott Tulloch); chapter book series include Miniwings and Lulu and the Dance Detectives. She is also the playwright for Hī Hā School Productions.

Crowned Winner of MasterChef New Zealand 2022, Sam Low is a hospitality professional, cookbook author, content creator and co-host of the food podcast, Ate Ate Ate. Fiji born Chinese, raised in New Zealand, and a proud member of the LGBTQ community with international work experience having lived in Melbourne and Vancouver. He is a Chinese gastronomy enthusiast, a global competing barista champion and coffee educator gaining the titles of the 2016 NZ barista champion and two time NZ latte art champion ranking 6th in the world at one stage.

Saraid de Silva is a writer and arts worker based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She co-created and co-hosted the Radio New Zealand podcast and video series Conversations With My Immigrant Parents. In 2024 she released her first novel, Amma, in Aotearoa, Australia, and the UK.

Selina Tusitala Marsh ONZM lives on beautiful Waiheke Island, attends bush-church regularly and is most proud of her graphic memoir series, Mophead. She is a NZ Poet Laureate (2017-19), an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit, a Fellow of the Royal Society, teach Pacific Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Auckland and will be finishing a creative-critical book about the first 20 Pacific women poets when she takes up the Katherine Mansfield Menton Award in Europe for six months this year.

Shayne Carter (Ngati Tuwharetoa) is a musician and writer from Dunedin. He has won multiple NZ Music Awards and is a member of the NZ Music Hall of Fame through his work with such bands as Dimmer and Straitjacket Fits. His memoir Dead People I Have Known won the Ockham Book Award for non-fiction in 2020, the first time a debut writer has taken the prize. He has composed for film, theatre and dance and is currently scoring a piece for the Royal NZ Ballet and completing an album of his own material with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He jams every weekend with his friends in the experimental noise group - Paddington 3.

Simon Burt is an escapee from the advertising and film industries who forged a self-employed lifestyle over 25 years in Wairarapa. Now that the nest is well and truly empty, he is dedicated to the world of words. His debut book, Route 52 – A Big Lump of Country Unknown, is the result of much encouragement from others and is almost as much of a surprise to him as it is to the old girlfriend who said, 'I didn't think you had it in you'.

Stacey Teague (Ngāti Maniapoto/Ngāpuhi) is a writer, publisher and teacher living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her second poetry collection Plastic was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in March 2024. She is a publisher and editor at Tender Press, an independent publisher based in Wellington.

Steve Mushin is an industrial designer and author. He writes about urban rewilding and runs future-visioning workshops on transforming cities into high-tech habitats for all species. Steve is the author and illustrator of the science comedy Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan to Rewild Every City on Earth. Containing 100+ ludicrous, but scientifically possible inventions. Ultrawild has won Best Designed Children's Non-Fiction book (Australia, 2024), the Elsie Locke Award for Best Nonfiction (NZ, 2024), and it is shortlisted for the 2025 Spark! School Book Awards (UK). Ultrawild has been translated into German and is soon to be translated into French and Chinese and released as a US edition in 2025.

After graduating from Auckland University with an LLB, Te Rau practiced law in Auckland and Wellington, specialising in litigation. After over a decade in the law, he moved into the public sector holding several senior executive positions, including Deputy Secretary for the Environment, where he helped to lead the Crown’s position on Iwi Rights and Interests in Freshwater. Te Rau founded Te Amokura Consultants in 2017 and works with iwi, public, and private sector organisations. In 2016, Te Rau co-authored Mauri Ora – Wisdom from the Māori world.

Tina Ngata (Ngāti Porou) is a publshed writer, researcher and advocate for human rights, environmental rights, and indigenous justice, based in Te Ika a Māui (colonially titled North Island, New Zealand). She spends much of her time involved in local, national and international initiatives that highlight the role of settler coloniasm and highlight indigenous justice as the solution for transnational crises.

Employed by the University of Waikato since 1997, at present Tom is the Professor of Reo in Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao, the University’s Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies. Tom continues to also fulfill responsibilities in various roles within his iwi (Waikato, Maniapoto, Apakura), hapū (Hinewai, Urunumia, Taiwa), whānau; and more. He is a Justice of the Peace; a member of the Waitangi Tribunal, of the Māori Council of Heritage New Zealand amongst other national and local organisations. Tom presents locally, nationally, and internationally and often has his opinion widely sought on Waikato-Maniapoto, Kingitanga history, tikanga, and reo, with publications and translations in those and many other areas. The stories of Ōrākau, his tupuna Paiaka Te Whakatapu’s presence there along with his wife Tiraroa he heard as a child from his elders he passes on to his uri. They in turn pass those narratives on to their audiences. These stories of yesteryear recall our past. Embedded in the ‘kōrero tuku iho’ are lessons which can guide us today and inform our future.

Tracy Farr is a writer who used to be a scientist. Her third novel, WONDERLAND, won the 2024 NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize. Tracy lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, on Miramar Peninsula, where WONDERLAND is set.

Tracy has been a journalist for more than 40 years, including 20 years in the press gallery covering politics for the New Zealand Press Association, The Dominion, The Dominion Post and Stuff. She was political editor for The Dominon Post and Stuff for about half that period, before being appointed editor of the Sunday Star-Times, with her role expanding more recently to become editor of The Post as well.

Tusiata Avia (Member of NZ Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts) is fresh from The Savage Coloniser Show, the stage adaptation of her Ockham best book of poetry award winning book. She’s hoping it will follow in the footsteps of Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, which played all over the country and globe, including Off-Broadway.

Tīhema Baker (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira) is a writer from Ōtaki. His writing often deconstructs the complex interactions between te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā, based on professional and personal experience. He is the author of satirical sci-fi novel Turncoat, which parodies the experiences of Māori public servants and was longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024. He is also the author of the young adult series The Watchers Trilogy, and various short stories and essays.

Vanya Insull is a food blogger also known on social media as VJ_cooks, she shares recipes and videos on Instagram and Facebook as well as her website vjcooks.com. She is an author or three cookbooks Everyday Favourites 2022, Summer Favourites 2023 and Everyday Comfort Food 2025. She lives in Taupo with her husband and two sons.

Verity Mackintosh is a producer and storyteller with over 20 years of experience in factual television, film, commercials, and virtual reality, specialising in Indigenous cinema, large-scale drama. She has produced award-winning films, including KŌKĀ (2025), WASHDAY (2022), PUREA (2020), and MINISTRY OF JINGLE (2023), and developed over 40 hours of broadcast documentaries also dabbling in virtual reality, live events, photography and commercials. As the founder of Krafty Productions she has collaborated with leading organisations across Aotearoa New Zealand, China, Australia, and Taiwan, bringing impactful stories to life through creative development, line producing, and impact producing.

Victor Rodger ONZM is a writer, producer and teacher of Samoan (Iva) and Scottish (Broughty Ferry) descent. In January he used most of the money he got from being named an Arts Laureate to rent a comfortable little garret in Paris and do some writing (which he did in between multiple croissants and pains au chocolat).

Vincent O'Malley is a Wellington writer and historian who has published extensively on the New Zealand Wars. His key works include The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800–2000 (BWB, 2016) and the bestseller The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (BWB, 2019). Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (BWB, 2021) won the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for non-fiction, and he received a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement that same year. In 2023, he was awarded the Royal Society Te Apārangi’s Humanities Aronui Medal.

Warren Maxwell (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngai Te Rangi) has been a professional working musician and composer for the better part of two decades in bands including Southside of Bombay, Trinity Roots, Little Bushman and Fat Freddys Drop. Warren has composed for film and television and performed at numerous festivals internationally.  He has lived in Featherston for over 18 years, and he and his whānau think of Featherston as home.

Growing up and now farming in Golden Bay, Wayne Langford, his wife and three teenage boys have been on a journey of self-discovery. Crippled by his mental health, they took to achieving something to say that they had "lived" for each day, not knowing 2800 days down the track they would still be going. The journey has led them to all kinds of places, achieved numerous feats both big and small and most of all got Wayne thriving again.