Raewyn Alexander is a novelist, poet, short story and non-fiction writer who was placed in the top five for the Landfall Essay Competition, 2011. Her latest book, A Bee Lover’s Poetry Companion, is published through Earl of Seacliff, and she’s going on a Poetic Tour to America in 2012. You can read more about Alexander here.

Christopher Allen is the author of the absurdist satire Conversations with S. Teri O’Type. His fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in numerous places online and in print. Allen blogs here and here.

Anonymous_Author© is a literary voice who resides near Puhoi. He is an existentialist suffering from an identity crisis and exists only through the benevolence of language. René Descartes categorically stated: “I think therefore I am.” Anonymous_Author© ambiguously offers: “You think you exist.” As well as poetry, flash fiction and short stories, Anonymous_Author© is currently working on his unauthorised autobiography, The Ghostwriter in the Machine. Follow his progress on Twitter (@anonauth).

Derin Attwood was short-listed for NZ Writers’ College Short Story Competition 2010 and has had work published by a number of magazines and websites including 52/250. Her new novel, The Caves of Kirym, was published in July 2011.

Jenny Baker has exhibited art in South West England and New Zealand. She works primarily in the photographic medium, most frequently in colour.  Baker resides in Northland, the perfect place for a photographer who loves landscape and outdoor photography. She works on personal projects, including portraiture and commissioned pieces.  Baker can be contacted at jbakerphotos [at] gmail [dot] com.

Llyvonne Barber has an interest in photography and lives in a rural village in the Manawatu. Her work “Jellyfish Lights” was featured in the April 2012 issue.

Kath Beattie is a wet-weather writer who lives in Dunedin. Kath has been writing forever with moderate success. She enjoys the outdoors and chases neighbourhood cats off her garden with water pistols.

Jaypee Belarmino is an occasional artist whose desire to express the contradicting and esoteric nature of life has led him to photography. Jaypee’s interests include prose and poetry, photography, abstract painting, mixed media art, and multimedia art. He is a member of New Zealand Poetry Society and the World Poetry International.

Jaclyn Bergamino grew up in the sultry swamps of Florida where she developed an appreciation for the environment and how it shapes our experiences. Since then, she has taught English and art all over the world. Seeing the world through the lenses of other cultures, in other environments, and through the eyes of her students has shaped and informed her writing. She is currently based in Wellington.

Maree Bishop lives on the Hibiscus Coast. She has written two novels, one of which she recently published online. Both novels are based in the US where she spent several years. Some of Maree’s short stories have appeared in national magazines.

Karen Peterson Butterworth has published seven books. Her poetry and prose has appeared in journals and anthologies in seven countries. She won the 2001 BNZ/Katherine Mansfield Essay Prize with an essay about Otaki, where she lives with her husband Brian. Themes for her writing often come to her while gazing at sunlit leaves stirred by sea breezes.

Mary Carroll-Hackett’s work has appeared in numerous journals including Clackamas Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Superstition Review, Drunken Boat, The Prose-Poem Project and others. Her book, The Real Politics of Lipstick, won the 2010 Slipstream competition; another chapbook, Animal Soul, is forthcoming from Kattywompus Press. She edits The Dos Passos Review and The Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry. Most recently, she co-founded SPACES, an innovative online magazine of art and literature.

Tina Cartwright is a folk artist concerned with stories and beliefs that people carry in their blood, whether consciously or subconsciously. She has one foot in the south of New Zealand and another in Mexico. She currently lives in Mexico City and is working on poetry and short story collections.

James Claffey hails from County Westmeath, Ireland, and lives on an avocado ranch in Carpinteria, California, with his wife, the writer and artist, Maureen Foley, their daughter, Maisie, and Australian cattle-dog, Rua. His work appears in many places, including The New Orleans Review, Elimae, Necessary Fiction, Connotation Press and Word Riot. His website is at The Wrong Corner of the Sky.

Megan Doyle Corcoran lives in Wellington where she writes and rides a bicycle. A 2012 student in the MA programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters, she writes short stories that are usually much longer than 250 words. Her work has appeared in online and print journals in the US. She’s originally from California and appreciates that her presence in New Zealand is so graciously tolerated.

Bruce Costello left Dunedin in 2010, retreated to Hampden, joined the Waitaki Writers’ Group and began to write. He has three times won the HER magazine bi-monthly contest and one of his stories features in Pink Magazine 2012. Other stories appear in online journals including Snorkel, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Fiction 365, NIB, Cyclamens & Swords and Alfie Dog Ltd. He was short-listed in the 2012 Victoria Cancer Council Art Awards.

Sarah Cotter lives in Whenuapai with two children, heavy air traffic and a menagerie of animals. She has been writing poetry for a long time. She read at Rhythm & Verse in 2011 and will do so again in May 2012. She is embarking on a bachelor of bilingual primary teaching this year.

Mike Crowl is a 67-year-old writer, pianist, composer and actor living in Dunedin. He has been writing for publication since 1989, with most published material these days appearing on one or other of his blogs. Current projects include typing up weekly letters he sent to his family in 1968/9 when he was at the London Opera Centre, and writing a set of songs in which dogs of various shapes and sizes are the focus.

Makyla Curtis is an Auckland-based poet and artist. She is one of the editors of Potroast literary ‘zine. Makyla works primarily on collaboration works such as Abstract Compositions and was one of the creators of the Metonymy Project in 2008.

Daphne Clair de Jong, author of almost 80 romantic and historical novels published worldwide, is a past winner of the Katherine Mansfield BNZ Short Story Award and other awards, has had numerous short stories and articles published in magazines and anthologies, and some poetry in literary magazines. She also tutors writing in nearly all genres and runs the world-famous-in-New Zealand Kara School of Writing and Karaveer Writers’ Retreat at her home in rural Northland. Find out more here.

Elizabeth Farris lives in Waikanae wedged between the bush and the Tasman Sea. Her short stories are published in Australian and American anthologies and her stage plays have been performed in the US. She was short-listed for the Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing in 2009 and was runner-up in the Rodney Writes Competition in 2008.

Rachel J Fenton lives in Auckland, has work in Blackmail Press, Horizon Review, Otoliths and others. Her work was short-listed for the Fish One Page Prize and University of Maine Ultra Short Competition, and long-listed for the Sean O’ Faolain International Short Story Prize and Kathleen Grattan Award. She publishes a daily graphic poetry page about stuttering at Escape Behaviours as Rae Joyce and blogs at snow like thought.

Stephen Garside is a Wellington writer who has written full time, in and around three children and a shift-working wife, for two years but will be training to become a primary school teacher in 2012 so is wondering how much sleep he can go without in order to maximize writing hours.

Nod Ghosh lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has completed year one of the Hagley Writers’ Institute creative writing course. Nod’s work has been accepted in Catalyst, Penduline, Christchurch Press, Takahē and Express. Nod works as a medical laboratory scientist.

Celine Gibson shares her home with her husband (a bagpiping fiend) and two cats. Writing is her first love, followed by gardening, baking and painting — when time allows.

Adrian Hall was born in Hull in 1969. After studying Philosophy at Lancaster, he went into teaching and has been teaching in the north west of England for over 20 years. In what little spare time he has, he writes short stories and flash fiction. He lives in Lancashire with his wife, three children and some chickens.

Tim Heath writes poetry, enjoys some success in the oddity known as Poetry Slams and writes whenever he can grab time from grandchildren, travelling, sailing, growing vegetables and hanging out more washing than he cares to mention.

Bernard Heise lives in Northland and contributed the photograph Twin Doorways, taken in Mazatlán, Mexico, to the August 2012 issue.

Kevlin Henney writes shorts and flashes and drabbles of fiction. His work has appeared online and on tree, in Litro, New Scientist, Every Day Fiction, Fiction365, Word Gumbo and others. His flash fiction has also appeared in the Jawbreakers and Kissing Frankenstein & Other Stories anthologies. He can be found on Twitter, at his blog and, occasionally, at home in Bristol, UK.

Tania Hershman’s second collection of 56 short fictions, My Mother Was An Upright Piano, is published by Tangent Books. Her short stories and poetry have been published in print and online and broadcast on BBC Radio. She is writer-in-residence in Bristol University’s Science Faculty and editor of The Short Review, the online journal spotlighting short story collections and their authors. More at Tania Hershman … making things up.

Phyll Holroyd is excited to have rediscovered the creative challenge and satisfaction of writing a short story. She loves letting quick-fire ideas flow and then applying the rules of writing to turn these ideas into acceptable stories. She also enjoys photography and her art appears in the May 2012 issue.

Sally Houtman is a Wellington writer. She began writing fiction and poetry in 2007 and threatens not to stop.

Graham Hughes, aka BlindPoet aka KiwiVagabond, is a teacher, dreamer and dissident. He is a lover of discards, passed-over technology, of old cameras, and lenses that don’t leave you needing a mortgage. He can be found reading old books on photography or kneeling among the dandelions on his back lawn, camera in hand. He collects old photographic paper and chemicals and is captured by the beauty of historic photography. See more of his photography at gallery259 or at his website.

Daniel Ingledew is a 27-year-old Wellington native. New to writing, he reads a lot and is a keen amateur photographer, having recently branched out into paid photography work and begun a diploma in photography this year.

Abha Iyengar is a widely published poet and author who doesn’t let the term ‘genre’ faze her. She lives in New Delhi, India and loves travelling on foot and via her mind. Her flash fiction collection Flash Bites is available as an ebook on Amazon and Smashwords. More at her website and her blog.

Teoti Jardine is of Māori, Irish and Scottish descent with Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe and Kāi Tahu tribal affiliations. He spent twenty years overseas living in Canada, Italy and the UK where he worked as a nurse, a potter and a deckhand. Since his retirement two years ago he has been writing full-time. He’s had poems published in Te Pānui Rūnaka, Christchurch Press and London Grip, and hopes to have a collection of poetry published later this year. He lives with his dog Amie at his friend Bert McConnell’s place near Oxford in North Canterbury and is a member of the Canterbury Poets Collective committee.

Jac Jenkins lives rurally near Whangarei with a teenage daughter, two cats and five chickens. She currently works as a librarian, a thousand times removed from her initial career as a veterinarian. She has been writing poetry since she was a teenager and recently completed a poetry-writing course through NorthTec.

Kathryn Jenkins unexpectedly started writing flash fiction as a result of a workshop exercise and has written at least one a month since. She’s still surprised at what turns up on the page and wonders where the ideas come from. Hopefully they will never dry up.

Gay Johnson lives on the North Shore of Auckland with her young son and her dog. She has lived much of my life in Ireland and also several years in Japan. She belongs to the International Writers’ Workshop and has published articles in the Irish Independent, NEXT and Woman’s Weekly, as well as stories in The Best New Zealand Fiction #6 and Home.

Tim Jones writes novels, short stories and poetry. He was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. His latest book is the poetry collection Men Briefly Explained. You can find him on Twitter and Facebook too.

Clare Kirwan is from Wirral, England. Her stories have been published in The Binnacle, Dark Tales, Contrary, Flax, Short, Fast and Deadly and Little Fiction’s Listerature. By day she is a library assistant – like Batgirl. More at www.clarekirwan.co.uk.

Melanie Koster lives in Christchurch with her husband and two children. She works at a local primary school and teaches a pre-school music group. She is the author of children’s picture books, The Reluctant Little Flower Girl (Mallinson Rendel 2008) and Milly Maloo and the Miracle Glue (Scholastic NZ 2011).

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington state. His work appears widely in print and online. Len’s story collection debuts from Aqueous Books in 2014. You can find him at People You Know By Heart.

W.F. Lantry received his Maîtrise from L’Université de Nice and PhD in Creative Writing from University of Houston. His poetry collections are The Structure of Desire (Little Red Tree 2012) and The Language of Birds (Finishing Line 2011). Recent honours include: National Hackney Literary Award in Poetry and Potomac Review Prize. His work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Möbius and Aesthetica. He currently works in Washington, D.C. and is an associate fiction editor at JMWW.

Graeme Lay was born in Foxton, grew up in coastal Taranaki and is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington. He began writing in the late 1970s and since then has published or edited forty works of fiction and non-fiction. These include collections of short stories, novels for adults and young adults and books of travel writing. He has just completed a novel based on the life of James Cook and his fourth collection of short stories, The Citadel, will be published later this year.

Kate Mahony has an MA in Creative Writing from the Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University. A former journalist, she has tried novel writing, short story writing and now flash fiction. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Zealand Fiction Vol. 6, Turbine, Takahē, The International Literary Quarterly, Tales for Canterbury, Blue Crow Magazine (Australia) and Blackmail Press. She teaches short story writing at the Community Education Centre in Wellington.

Lesley Marshall lives in Maungatapere and divides her time between teaching and editing, and answering needy phone calls from various children, both biological and surrogate.  It makes for a very interesting life.

Leah McMenamin is a student, knitter, story-lover, and writer. Having travelled to far-flung places over the past four years, she now lives in Wellington and finds constant inspiration in our dynamic capital city. You can generally find her at her blog, Orange Afternoon Lover.

Vivienne Merrill lives on the Kapiti Coast where it is all too easy to beachwalk and dream her days away. Sometimes, when she’s lucky, some of these dreams become stories and poems. Writing as Vivienne Joseph, she has won several awards for her work, particularly for her children’s books.

Frances Mountier grew up in Christchurch and lives in Wellington. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters (2009). Her work has appeared in Turbine, Sport, Takahē, Renegade House, Hue & Cry and JAAM. She is working on a novel made up of numerous ‘tellings’.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is a short story writer, novelist and poet, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1970 and living in Galway. Her fourth short story collection, Mother America, was published by New Island in June 2012. For more, go here.

Maris O’Rourke has been published in a range of poetry journals in New Zealand and overseas (including being Guest Poet in Poetry NZ #44) and placed in a number of competitions, including the South Island Writers’ Association National Competition, the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize and the Robert Burns Poetry Competition. Her first children’s book Lillibutt’s Big Adventure has just been published by Duck Creek Press and she is now working on her first poetry collection while exploring flash fiction.

Janet Pates lives in the small town of Tuakau, near the mouth of the Waikato River. She writes for children and for adults, she writes fiction and non-fiction, the latter with an emphasis on local history. In between times, she is trying to create an interesting memoir out of a singularly ordinary life.

Karen Phillips lives in Ahipara, Northland. She began writing in 2009 and won the Katherine Mansfield Novice Award that year followed by first place in the Heartland Short Story Competition, and has continued to be placed in competitions since then. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Kenneth Pobo had a collection of his micro-fiction called Tiny Torn Maps published by Deadly Chaps in 2011. Recent stories appear in Philadelphia Stories and Wilde Oats.

Martin Porter gazes at the sky from the winterless north of New Zealand. A member of writers’ groups in Whangarei and Jersey, he writes mainly poetry and won first prize in the Channel Islands Writers Competition in 2005. Some of his work can be found at Take Flight and Poetry Notes and Jottings.

Matt Potter is an Australian-born writer who keeps part of his psyche in Berlin. Matt has been published in various places online, his anthology Vestal Aversion was published earlier in 2012 and he is also the founding editor of Pure Slush. Find more of Matt’s work here.

Judith Pryor is formerly a cultural critic and historian. She has spent the last eighteen months at home looking after her young daughter and, besides writing short fiction, is now learning the guitar, blogging about motherhood and feminism on smothered and putting the finishing touches on a children’s novel.

Leanne Radojkovich‘s stories have featured in the UK’s Flash Fiction World and in Turbine. Her flash readings on YouTube have had over 2,000 views in the past year.

Aaron Robertson is a writer and musician living in Hikurangi. Some of his poetry can be found at Take Flight.

Bev Robitai lives on the North Shore of Auckland and writes murder mysteries in between wrangling words and editing projects for other writers. She is occasionally interrupted to take photos of houses, but never to do housework. Her books can be found on Amazon.

Emily Seresin is a costume designer and has clothed other people’s characters for nearly thirty years. Lately she likes to experiment with characters of her own. She particularly likes it when her characters stay on the page and don’t stomp around the wardrobe truck complaining about itchy socks. Emily grew up in Wellington and now lives in Sydney on the Bankstown line.

Kathy Sewell has had a number of stories published and several plays written and performed. She is working on her novel at the moment while completing the last two papers of her B.A. extramurally at Massey University. She lives on a lifestyle block, is a proud grandma and belongs to IWW, NZSA and Tauranga Writers, and she runs the Thames Writers Group.

Gus Simonovic is a performance poet and producer. Along with his own poetry collection, his work has been published in NZ and UK magazines and anthologies. In 2010 he created a spoken word show “iWas” and in 2011 released a 15-track poetry/music collaboration CD. He is a Poetry Slam winner and a regular guest poet at poetry events in Auckland and internationally. Gus is currently working on his new solo spoken-word show “Aotearoa – Lost in Translation”, as well as a new collaborative multimedia performance “Insomnia in a Daydream”. Read more at Printable Reality.

Rebecca Simons is an ex-office worker who discovered short story writing while enjoying a mid-life crisis. Although her university years were spent studying European language and culture, she has found an even greater challenge in mastering the use of her maternal language, English, and hopes to continue with this challenge for many years to come.

Caroyln Smith-Masefield writes for sanity, teaches for humanity, lives for equanimity, dresses for vanity but can rhyme with manatee.

Penny Somervaille writes poetry and short fiction. She is currently one of four MCs for Poetry Live, the weekly poetry event at the Thirsty Dog in Auckland. She has been published in Sidestream Magazine, Blackmail Press, Live Lines, and Pot Roast and has read her poetry at Rhythm & Verse, The Library Bar, The Pah Homestead, The Thirsty Dog and The PumpHouse. She lives in Auckland.

Elaine Souster is an accomplished artist who several years ago discovered a love for creative writing. She is active in various writing groups and supports other writers. She loves to take her view of human nature and turn it into a story.

Marcus Speh is a German writer who lives in Berlin, writes in English and spent a wonderful year in NZ. Marcus blogs at marcusspeh.com.

Andrew Stancek was born in Bratislava and saw Russian tanks occupying his homeland. His dreams of circuses and ice cream, flying and lion-taming, miracle and romance have appeared recently in Tin House online, r.kv.r.y, The Linnet’s Wings, Connotation Press, THIS Literary Magazine, Flash Fiction Chronicles, Istanbul Literary Review and Pure Slush.

Sharon Stratford is a Wellington writer. She loves spending days at the beach with a good book for company, playing with words and swapping stories with children.

Maureen Sudlow is an associate member of The New Zealand Society of Authors (Northland) and writes mainly poetry and children’s picture books. Her poetry has been published both online and in magazines such as A Fine Line. She has a Diploma in Creative Writing from Whitireia, and has recently published a children’s picture book, Fearless Fred and the Dragon, which was short-listed for the 2012 Storylines Joy Cowley Award.  Her blog site is http://www.kiwis-soar.com.

 

Campbell Taylor is often a phlebotomist, sometimes a soundman, occasionally a performance poet. His short stories have been published in New Zealand and overseas. Born in Christchurch, he lives in Titahi Bay with his young daughter while he chips away at his first (or second novel), depending on his mood.

Jeff Taylor is a retired pharmacist living in Hamilton who enjoys writing short stories for both adults and children. He has been writing for about six years and has won three short story contests in the UK (Global Short Stories) and has a children’s story published in Barbara Else’s latest anthology, Great Mates.

Kim Thomas is a bloke — let’s get that clear — although was once asked, in writing, by his doctor’s receptionist to make an appointment for a cervical smear test. Usually most accommodating, he politely declined on that occasion. He recently rekindled a long smouldering interest in creative writing. A growing weariness with his profession — the law — has had something to do with that.

Alistair Tulett is a 1960 baby belatedly emerging as a wannabe writer from the obscurity of a professional career (ongoing) and farming goats (a “silent” partner) near Morrinsville in the Waikato. He lives with two of four grown children, an indomesticate cat, various livestock, and gratitude that luck has found him both the inspiration to try as well as encouragement.

Melanie Vezey lives in the Bay of Islands, taking inspiration from the surrounding natural beauty, her husband, and the wild adventures of their two young boys. She is renewed by daily hikes in the bush where story characters call to her from behind every tree. She tries to remember a pen and paper lest the good ones get away.

Townsend Walker is a writer living in San Francisco. His stories have been published in over fifty literary journals and included in six anthologies. One story won the SLO NightWriters story contest. Two were nominated for The O. Henry Award. Four were performed at the New Short Fiction Series in Hollywood. During a career in finance he published three books: foreign exchange, derivatives and portfolio management. His website is here.

Gabriel Ward is a NZ expat currently teaching English in South Korea. He’s always had a passion for the arts, and spends most of his free time reading and taking photos. You can find more of his work here.

Ann Webber grew up in regional Victoria, spent most of her adult life in Sydney and moved to Auckland two years ago. Because of her work as a hospital scientist, she can confirm that everything that happens in medical soaps is true. Ann is a member of the Auckland-based writers’ group International Writers’ Workshop and was Runner-Up in the 2012 National Flash Fiction competition.

Racheal Weti was born in Tauranga, and raised in Mount Maunganui, Hamilton and Te Aroha. Racheal creates art that connects family and her sense of home. Her painting style has developed through the inspiration of her Māori heritage and her love of New Zealand. She says: “I am drawn to the beautiful and natural shapes that surround our wonderful land and all the historical and deep cultural significance of Māori symbols and their meanings.” You can find more of Racheal Weti’s work here.

Sandra Whyte lives in Northland and paints with a unique style of realism achieved by painting layer upon layer with the finest oil paints. More about her work, including commissioned paintings, here.

Fraser Williamson has had work in many national and international publications, books and projects for design firms and agencies. He shows his paintings at the Flagstaff Gallery in Devonport. He lives with his wife Loisi and their son Antonio. They like to spend their time between Tonga, New Zealand and Spain. His painting ‘Fishing’ was featured in our April 2013 issue.

Wendy Williamson comes from the seismically vibrant city of Christchurch and has been a member of South Island Writers’ Association for about a year. She has recently had some success in their competitions with flash fiction, a poem and a memoir. Wendy also belongs to a critique group which keeps her on her toes and enjoys the challenge of writing flash fiction.

Sheri L. Wright is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of six books of poetry, including her most recent, The Feast of Erasure. Wright’s visual work has appeared in numerous journals, including Blood Orange Review and The Single Hound, and is featured in the October international issue.

Kath Wynn is a freelance editor, writer and researcher living in Maungatapere. She ghost-writes biographies and reflections mainly for hospice patients and immigrants, writes short stories and poetry, especially for children and transcribes recordings of meetings, interviews, etc.

Melindy Wynn-Bourne is a freelance writer with an emphasis on flash fiction living in Mississippi. Her stories have been featured in such magazines as Gemini and the sixth annual ultra short edition of The Binnacle. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading and photography.

Matthew Zela is a writer of poetry, prose and fiction, currently at work on a final draft of his first novel. Matthew lives in Northland, a gardener by trade.