RESIDENTIAL WORKSHOP SPEAKERS 2010

Liz Allen has many years experience in arts administration both in Canada and New Zealand. She held the position of Chair of the Cultural Advisory to the SaskTrust which administers the Western Canadian Lottery funds. Returning to New Zealand she worked in Community Newspapers and for a small publisher. She was the CEO of the New Zealand Society of Authors from 2002 to 2008. She is currently on the Public Lending Right Advisory and the New Zealand Book Month Board as well as a member of the NZSA Auckland Branch Events Committee organising their Writers on Monday series. She has published two books of poetry. Her first book A Shored up House won the League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She is a member of the Michael King Writers Centre Trust.

Rachel Barrowman is a Wellington-based writer and historian. She is the author of a number of works in the field of New Zealand cultural and intellectual history, including histories of the Alexander Turnbull Library and Victoria University of Wellington, and, most recently, Mason: the life of R.A.K. Mason (Victoria University Press, 2003). The latter was lauded for being an impressive account of four decades of New Zealand literary, social and political history and won the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Biography in 2004. In 2006 she was the recipient of the Michael King Creative New Zealand Writers' Fellowship for her current project, which is a biography of novelist Maurice Gee.

Diane Brown’s first book Before the Divorce We Go to Disneyland won the Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry Award at the 1997 Montana NZ Book Awards. Combining poetry and prose, the work was described as sitting ‘surprisingly comfortably on the borderline between autobiographical fiction and confessional autobiography’. Her travel memoir, Liars & Lovers (2004) and the prose/poetic memoir Here comes another vital moment (2006), confirm a distinctive voice which crosses time, boundaries and genres with ease. Other publications include two novels - If the tongue fits and Eight Stages of Grace and a collection of poetry - Learning to Lie Together. Diane is the Creative Writing co-ordinator and tutor at the Otago School of Media.

Geoff Chapple is an author, journalist, playwright, and inspiration behind Te Araroa the New Zealand-long tramping trail. He has published five non-fiction books, including - Rewi Alley of China (1980), 1981: The Tour (1984), South (1986) and Te Araroa - The New Zealand Trail (2003) He was part of the music group From Scratch and wrote the libretto for the Jack Body opera Alley (1998). He co-wrote Vincent Ward’s The Navigator, and his most recent script is Hatch or the Plight of the Penguins, a one-man play that toured NZ and Tasmania during 2007-2009. He is a member of the Michael King Writers Centre Trust.

Lorain Day began her career in publishing almost thirty years ago, as an editorial assistant at Heinemann - and has recently left HarperCollins Publishers, where she has been Publishing Manager for the past eight years. In that time she has done just about everything from gluing folios to artwork and cutting in corrections by hand to negotiating multinational edits of the likes of Margaret Mahy and Celia Lashlie and orchestrating the largest single print run for any new Zealand author - 900,000 copies of Ian Brodie's Cameras in Narnia. A published author herself, she is a strong advocate of children's literature and the power of imaginative fiction.

Paul Diamond (Ngati Haua, Te Rarawa and Nga Puhi) is a writer, historian and broadcaster. After working as an accountant for seven years, he switched to journalism in 1997. Paul’s journalism has been recognised with Qantas Media Awards, Peace Awards and a David Low Chevening Fellowship to Oxford University. His first book, A Fire in Your Belly, a collection of interviews with Maori leaders, was published by Huia in 2003. His second book, an illustrated biography of Makereti (1873-1930), Makereti: taking Maori to the World was published by Random in 2007. Paul also contributed an essay to Sexuality and the stories of Indigenous People, published by Huia in 2007. He is researching the life of Charles MacKay, a mayor of Wanganui, who was convicted of attempted murder after he shot the writer Walter D’Arcy Cresswell in 1920.

Sam Elworthy was raised in South Canterbury, went to university in Dunedin and later wrote Ritual Song of Defiance: a social history of students at the University of Otago 1890-1990. He was awarded a Fulbright New Zealand Graduate Award in 1991 to complete a PhD in History at Rutgers University, and stayed for fifteen years in the US. The last ten years were spent as Editor-in-Chief of Princeton University Press, where he published science and natural history books. In 2007 he returned to become Director of Auckland University Press. Recent successes include Iain Sharp’s Heaphy, David Veart’s First Catch your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking, Barry Gustafson’s political biography Kiwi Keith and Deborah Shepard’s Her Life’s Work, Conversations with five New Zealand Women. Sam is Chairman of the Michael King Writers’ Centre Trust.

Bradford Haami (Ngati Awa, Ngati Kahungunu, Kai Tahu, Tuwharetoa) has written extensively about Maori history and culture, as well as being a documentary and drama writer, a director and producer, and a researcher at Te Papa in Wellington.  He has been a university lecturer in Maori Studies and drama.  Published books include Dr. Golan Maaka: Maori Doctor (Tandem Press, 1995), Putea Whakairo: Maori and the Written Word (Huia, 2004) and True Red: the Life of an ex-Mongrel Mob Gang Leader (True Red, 2007).   His latest project, with the working title Ika-Moana: Whale Traditions of the Maori, explores the special place whales have in Maori culture from the pre- colonial era to the present day. In 2010 he held the first ever Maori Writer’s Residency at the Michael King Writers Centre.

Dame Fiona Kidman is a leading novelist, short story writer and poet and, with her non fiction work included, has published more than twenty books. She has also worked as a librarian, producer and critic and is a powerful advocate for writers and literature, being NZSA’s President of Honour 2008/2009. She made her name with A Breed of Women (1979), one of the first contemporary novels to reflect the changing role of women in NZ. Her novel The Book of Secrets, winner of the 1988 NZ Book Award for Fiction and The Captive Wife, Readers’ Choice award winner at the 2006 Montana NZ Book Awards, are fictionalised accounts of historical events. Recently two volumes of memoirs have been published -At the End of Darwin Road (2008) and Beside the Dark Pool (2009). In 1998, she was made a Dame Companion of the NZ Order of Merit for services to literature.

David Ling has worked in educational and trade publishing in companies large and small. He started as an editor at Longman Paul and then spent eight years as editorial director of Heinemann Publishers, followed by six years as publishing director and deputy managing director of Random Century. Since 1992 he has run his own publishing, contract book production and consultancy company – David Ling Publishing Ltd, which publishes memoir, history, biography, general non-fiction and some fiction.  The more than 30 biographies and memoirs published by David Ling include Agnes Wood's Colin McCahon, the Man and the Teacher, Maurice Shadbolt's One of Ben's and From the Edge of the Sky,  Robyn Jensen's Kirsa, a mother's story, Ian Cross' Such Absolute Beginners, Paul Moon's Fitzroy, Governor in Crisis, 1843 - 1845 and Hone Heke, Nga Puhi Warrior.

Gordon McLauchlan is best known as a cultural critic and a social historian and worked as a journalist, feature writer, sports writer and sub-editor before becoming a freelance writer in 1973. He first drew attention in 1976 with the bestselling The Passionless People and has since created a large body of work, with titles as diverse as The ASB and its Community, A History of New Zealand Humour and The Big Con. He spent ten years as the editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Encyclopaedia and was elected to the world executive of PEN International in 1996. Recent work includes A Short History of New Zealand and The Life and Times of Auckland. His memoir A Life’s Sentences was published in 2004 and this year he edited Loving All of It, with contributions from 32 eminent New Zealanders about growing old. He is a Specialist Advisor to the Michael King Writers’ Centre Trust.

Paul Millar is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Canterbury with research interests in New Zealand, Australian and Pacific Literature, and recent publications that include a major new selection of James K. Baxter¹s poetry. He is also the director of the University of Canterbury¹s newly established Humanities Computing Unit and has twice judged the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Paul¹s long-standing interest in biography dates back to Spark to a Waiting Fuse (VUP, 2001), which focuses closely on the adolescence of James K. Baxter. His latest book, No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson (AUP, 2010), has been acclaimed for its detailed insights into the life of one of New Zealand¹s major literary figures. Paul is currently working on a biography of Charles Brasch.

Bob Ross has been in the New Zealand book trade for over 40 years, originally representing Cambridge University Press. He founded Benton Ross Publishing in 1980 and Tandem Press in 1991. He has held many roles within the publishing industry, including Chair of BPANZ and New Zealand Book Trade Organisation, and has also as served on the board of Booksellers New Zealand and on Copyright Licensing Ltd. He set up NZ Publishers Export Group and now acts as a mentor for exporting publishers. He is Deputy Chairman of the Michael King Writers Centre Trust.

Professor Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal (Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Tamatera, Nga Puhi) has an impressive record as a leading creative Maori thinker, writer, musician, composer and researcher. He is the first Professor of Indigenous Development in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland and Director of Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, New Zealand’s Maori Centre of Research Excellence. The Centre’s role is to identify problems, needs and opportunities and develop appropriate research projects and programs. He has written or edited six books on aspects of matauranga Maori and iwi history. He published Te Haurapa: An Introduction to Researching Tribal Histories and Traditions (BWB, 1992) and most recently Te Ngakau: He Wananga i te Matauranga (MKTA 2009), a text in Maori about knowledge.

Deborah Shepard is the author of Her Life's Work: Conversations with Five New Zealand Women (2009) and reframing women: a history of New Zealand film (2000) and editor of Between the Lives: Partners in Art (2005). She teaches a popular series of Life Writing courses at the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Auckland and is currently the 2010 author mentor on First Chapters - Nga Wahanga Tuatahi, a programme for new writers in South Auckland. She is the consultant biographer for the Life Review Service at Mercy Hospice Auckland.

Peter Simpson is Director of The Holloway Press, which publishes limited edition, hand-printed books, and was formerly Associate Professor of English at The University of Auckland. He has taught at Massey, Canterbury, Toronto, Carleton (Ottawa) and Auckland Universities. He served as Member of Parliament for Lyttelton in 1987-90. As an academic, writer, and curator, he specialises in New Zealand literature, art and cultural history, modern poetry, and post-colonial literatures. He collaborates frequently with visual artists on books and has curated several exhibitions. He has written or edited over a dozen books, including, most recently, Colin McCahon The Titirangi Years 1953-59 (2007), Collected Poems by Charles Spear (2007 and Peter Peryer Photographer (2008). He is a member of the Michael King Writers’ Trust.

C. K. Stead is a poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist and emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland, where he taught for 20 years before he began writing fulltime. He has won many awards for fiction and poetry, most recently the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction in 2009, the 2009 Montana NZ Book Award for Reference and Anthology for C.K. Stead, Collected Poems, 1951-2006, and the Sunday Times Short Story Award for Last Season’s Man in 2010. He was admitted to the Order of New Zealand in 2007; he and Margaret Mahy are the only writers in this group of 25 living people. Partly inspired by the response to the autobiographical elements in Book Self: the Reader as Writer and the Writer as Critic, he has just published South-West of Eden: A Memoir 1932-1956.

Philip Temple is an award winning writer of considerable versatility, having published photographic books, political works and walking track guides as well as breaking new ground with his environmental novel, Beak of the Moon. The award winning TV documentary drama series At Risk of Our Lives, researched and scripted by Temple, was based on his book New Zealand Explorers: Great Journeys of Discovery. He has written two memoirs, The Last True Explorer (2002) about his journey to New Guinea with Heinrich Harrer and Chance is a fine thing (2009). In 2003, A Sort Of Conscience: The Wakefields won the Montana Award for Biography, the Ian Wards Prize and the prestigious Ernest Scott History Prize. He has lived in the UK, NZ and Germany, held the Burns and Mansfield fellowships in Dunedin and Menton and the Creative NZ Residency in Berlin. In 2005, he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.