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2020 Contributors

Alex Reece Abbot is an emerging New Zealand-Irish writer. Her stories are widely anthologised, including Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa New Zealand, The Broken Spiral (UNESCO Dublin City of Literature Read), The Real Jazz Baby (Best Anthology, 2020 Saboteur Awards), Flash Fiction Festival Anthology and Heron (Katherine Mansfield Society). A Greenbean Irish Novel winner (The Helpmeet), she is a Penguin Random House WriteNow alumna (Relative Strangers).
Dave Alcock lives in Devon, England, and writes about ordinary people and places. His stories focus on psychological change and the seeing and acceptance of new things. They have been published in print by Ad Hoc Fiction and can also be found online at Every Day Fiction, STORGY Magazine, Flash Frontier, and The Cabinet of Heed.
Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor was awarded the 2018 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition, and the 2017 Monash Prize for Emerging Writers. Her poem ‘Instructions’ was named by The Spinoff as the best poem of 2018, and she took up The Spinoff Review of Books Writer-in-Residence Award at the start of 2019. Her work has appeared in Starling, Mayhem, Brief, Poetry New Zealand, Landfall, Turbine, Mimicry, Min-a-rets, Sweet Mammalian, Sport and Verge. She is completing a PhD at the University of Waikato.
Caroline Barron is an award-winning writer, manuscript assessor, book reviewer, and trustee of the Michael King Writers Centre. She has a masters in creative writing from The University of Auckland. Her debut, Ripiro Beach: A Memoir of Life After Near Death (Bateman) is in stores now. www.carolinebarronauthor.com @carolinebarronauthor
Paul Beckman’s latest flash collection, Kiss Kiss (Truth Serum Press), was a finalist for the 2019/2020 Indie Book Awards. Some of his stories appeared in Spelk, Necessary Fiction, Litro, Pank, Playboy, Jellyfish Review and The Lost Balloon. He had a story selected for the 2020 UK National Flash Fiction Day Anthology Lineup. Paul curates the FBomb NY flash fiction reading series monthly in KGB’s Red Room (Currently Virtual).
Claire Beynon is an artist, writer and interdisciplinary researcher living on the Otago Peninsula, Dunedin. She balances collaborative work with the quieter rhythms of solo practice. In a world where taking and breaking are everywhere in evidence, Claire appreciates the way ‘activities of making’ stretch the parameters of our engagement, opening the door to sometimes tricky questions and discomforting conversations. More at her website and her project, Many as One.
Russell Boey is a second year Physics student at the University of Auckland. While his primary dream remains dropping out after publishing a successful novel (probably about the insignificance of human life beneath the cosmic majesty of uncaring Lovecraftian gods), he figures that being an astronomer is the next best thing.
Liz Breslin writes poems, plays, stories, opinion and reviews. Her poem collection, Alzheimer’s and a spoon, made the NZ Listener’s Top 100 Books of 2017. IN 2019, Liz toured in BC, Canada and was UNESCO Cities of Literature writer-in-residence in Krakow, Poland. In 2020 she’s Zoom-toured on four continents and co-created The Possibilities Project with Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature. www.lizbreslin.com
Jack Remiel Cottrell (Ngāti Rangi) is a cryptid lurking in the hills of east Auckland, surfacing only for rugby and cricket. His piece Work and Income Gothic was nominated for a 2020 Sir Julius Vogel award. He’d really like it if you followed his Instagram: @jackremiel or his Twitter: @sportingcryptid – or just visited his website: https://jackremiel.co.nz
Celia Coyne lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. She graduated with honours from Hagley Writers’ Institute and her fiction has appeared in various journals and anthologies. Her first collection of short stories, ‘Things You Don’t Need to Know’, is soon to be published by Truth Serum Press. She is currently creating books on mindfulness and meditation that feature her landscape photography. Find more of her writing and photography on her website www.mybeautifulsky.com
Mike Crowl , writer, pianist, composer and sometime actor, is now in his eighth decade. Since 2014 he has published three children’s fantasies: Grimhilda!, The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret, and The Disenchanted Wizard. He has written a non-fiction book, Diary of a Prostate Wimp, which to his surprise sells better than all the fantasies combined. Nevertheless he’s currently working on a fourth children’s story. He blogs less often than he once did, and no longer writes book reviews because he didn’t have enough time to read the books he wanted to read.
Ravithri de Silva is a first-generation New Zealander who grew up in Invercargill. Her father was Sri Lankan and her mother was Indian from Singapore. She is a journalist who now works in communications but despite scribbling ideas for stories on scraps of paper for years, it took an international pandemic to prompt her to enter her first writing competition.
Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a chronically ill writer and artist with a passion for poetry, mysticism, story and colour. Her creativity features regularly on spiritual blogs and in literary journals. Keren’s full-length publications include Recital of Love and Garden of God’s Heart. She lives in South East England and is mainly housebound.
Vera Hua Dong lives in Kerikeri Northland. Writing stories in English is a dream she never dared to imagine until she joined the Bay of Islands Writing. China is her birth country, Mandarin her native tongue. Life in rural New Zealand provides Vera with fresh perspectives into her upbringing in both old and modern China. Vera’s work can be found in the forthcoming anthology Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand (OUP 2020).
Andrea Ewing is a criminal lawyer by day, and a writer the rest of the time. Her stories, flash fictions and poems have been published in takahē, Flash Frontier and Headland. In 2004 she won the Katherine Mansfield Novice Short Story Award; in 2018 her flash fiction, Bivouac, was shortlisted for the National Flash Fiction Day award. More recently, she placed second in takahē’s 2019 short story competition. She lives in Auckland.
Mary Francis lives and works in Wellington. She usually writes comedy or crime and occasionally a mixture of the two.
Norman P Franke is a New Zealand-based poet, academic and filmmaker. He has published widely about 18th century literature as well as German-speaking exile literature (Albert Einstein, Else Lasker-Schüler, Karl Wolfskehl) and eco-poetics. Norman’s poetry has been broadcasted on radio and published in anthologies in Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. He was a 2017/18 finalist at the Aesthetica (UK) and Feldkircher (Austria) literature contests.
Trisha Hanifin is an Auckland writer of poetry, flash fiction, short stories and creative non-fiction. Her work has been published in Turbine, Flash Frontier, Bath Flash Fiction Vol 1, Fresh Ink, and Bonsai: Best small stories in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has a Masters of Creative Writing from Auckland University of Technology.
Rebecca Hawkes grew like a weed on a high-country farm near Methven and now works and writes from Wellington’s shaky slopes. She usually paints in oils and has exhibited work in a few local galleries. Rebecca’s first poetry chapbook ‘Softcore coldsores’ was published in 2019 in AUP New Poets 5. She co-edits the journal Sweet Mammalian and performs with popstar poets’ collective Show Ponies. More of her art and writing can be found online at her vanity mirror rebeccahawkesart.com or in publications like Starling, Sport, Scum and Stasis.
Jenna Heller lives in Christchurch with her partner, two teens, two cats and a very demanding dog. In 2019, her first YA manuscript was shortlisted for the Text Prize. Later this year, ‘The Change’ will appear in Sonder Press’ Best Small Fictions 2020 anthology. She is currently hard at work on a mixed collection of poetry and fiction. www.jennaheller.com
Ursula Hoult is late in life to writing. However, over that life she has done many things – a little bit of a lot of things, in fact. She trusts this will result in new and interesting stories being told. She is currently focused on flash fiction writing. Her writing can be found at https://ursulahoult.com/.
Gail Ingram is the author of Contents Under Pressure (Pūkeko Publications 2019), editor of two poetry anthologies, and an award-winning poet and writer of short fiction. Her work has appeared in Poetry New Zealand, Landfall, Atlanta Review, Blue Five Notebook, Fib Review and others. https://www.theseventhletter.nz/
Ryan Kelley is a survivor of a schizophrenia diagnosis. He writes stories and poems and lives in Toronto with his cat.
Koenraad Kuiper’s poetry has been published in New Zealand, Canada and The Netherlands. In New Zealand his poems have appeared in Islands, Landfall, Poetry New Zealand, Sport and takahe. He has published four books of poetry: Signs of Life, Mikrokosmos, Timepieces and Bounty at ten year intervals.
Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and the author of four books, most recently the story collection, THIS IS WHY I NEED YOU, out now from Ravenna Press. You can find more of his writing at lenkuntz.blogspot.com
Leonard Lambert is the author of nine poetry collections, the most recent being a chapbook Winter Waves (Cold Hub Press, 2018). Between poems, he paints and enjoys a degree of local fame on his home turf of Hawke’s Bay. Leonard’s works can be seen on: www.paintingpoets.co.nz
Sarah Leavesley is a prize-winning photographer who also dabbles with ink, paint, collage and film. She was The High Window journal’s Resident Artist 2019 and more of her photography/artwork can also be found here.
Susan Maclean is an Aucklander working on her first novel after completing the Creative Hub 30 Week Fiction course. Her 2020 NFFD entry was her first attempt at writing flash fiction, and definitely won’t be her last.
Abigail Marshall is a 22-year-old from Hamilton. She writes for fun, because she’s not very. By day she is a student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Waikato University. By night she is an ink and watercolour artist under the name Abigail Aggerie. She enjoys cats, custard, cool music and crying while reading Keats.
Michelle Matheson lives in Auckland, NZ with her husband, daughter and two very naughty cats. She primarily writes flash fiction and has been long-listed for Bath Flash Fiction. Long-listings or short-listings include Flash500, Reflex Flash Fiction and Retreat West amongst others. Her publications include Headland, Flash Frontier, The Cabinet of Heed and Ellipsiszine. Michelle tweets at @Mathesomichelle
Himali McInnes is a family doctor who works in a busy Auckland practice and in a prison. She writes flash fiction, essays, short stories and articles. Himali loves making a mess, either whilst gardening, cooking, chicken farming or beekeeping. She is a NZ Society of Authors Mentorship recipient for 2020.
Bruce Meyer is author or editor of 64 books of poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, and non-fiction. He was winner of the 2019 Anton Chekhov Prize for Fiction (UK). He lives in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.
Margaret Moores lives in Howick, Auckland. She was a bookseller and then a publisher’s sales representative for many years but is now a PhD student in Creative Writing at Massey University. Her flash fiction and poems have been published in journals and anthologies in New Zealand and Australia.
Pam Morrison is a Dunedin-based former journalist who has turned her hand to creative writing. She was a Regional Winner in the New Zealand Flash Fiction competition 2019 and her stories have been placed second and third in the London Independent Story Prize and Flash 500 Competition, respectively. Her work has also been published in Meniscus and in the Bath Flash Fiction anthology.
Faith Oxenbridge is from Otautahi. She is an English and writing teacher, with an MFA in Creative Writing from Canterbury University. Her short fiction has been runner-up in the Katherine Mansfield Competition and the Elizabeth Jolley Prize, and won the Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition in 2013. It has also been published in the NZ Listener, Best NZ Fiction, Turbine, the Six Pack 2, the Australian Book Review and the Christchurch Press. This is her first attempt at writing flash fiction.
Julia Paillier lives a quiet life in Kent, England, and has been writing flash fiction for a few years now.
Trish Palmer farms organically near Tapawera, New Zealand. Through her short stories, poetry and plays she likes to help the reader smile, or be thoughtful. Fishing, gold-panning, gardening and family time are her prime relaxants. Check her out on www.trish-palmer.com
Patrick Pink is a flash fiction fanatic and a fan of Flash Frontier.
Oshadha Perera is a student at Southland Boys High School. Spending his spare time exploring the world of short stories, flash fiction and poems, he enjoys reading, science and chess. 
Anne Perkinson was born in Whangarei and still lives/works there as an Interior Designer/florist. Her work has been published in a small volume of poetry, Of Life and Levis (1973), and Private Gardens: An Anthology of NZ Women Poets, edited by Riemke Ensing (1977). During the past few years she has been working on manuscripts for several children’s picture books. She is a first-time entrant in the NFFD competition.
Michele Powles has been a dancer, producer and writer across the globe. She is the mother of two small boys, both equally obsessed with creating new worlds (mostly under their beds). Her writing has been published widely and broadcast for radio in NZ and the UK, and she currently has screenplay Tenderwood in development. She was the 2010 Robert Burns Fellow. www.michelepowles.com
Hayden Pyke is notoriously bad at writing bios, but occasionally writes decent fiction and poetry. He has been published in English, Māori and Italian and currently lives in West Auckland.
Jeremy Roberts has appeared at poetry events in many locations, including being an MC at Auckland’s Poetry Live, and currently interviews poets on Radio Kidnappers. He has made neon lights, children’s puzzles, and has been a primary school teacher and a visual artist. Jeremy’s work has been published in a wide range of journals – including NZ Listener, Landfall, takahē, JAAM, Poetry NZ, and Phantom Billstickers. He is also a poetry book reviewer. His first poetry collection was Idiot Dawn, consisting of poems written in the 1980s. His collection second collection is Cards on the Table (IP Australia 2015).
Reihana Robinson‘s poetry is found in AUP New Poet 3, with Janis Freeguard and Katherine Liddy. Her first book of poetry Aue Rona was published by Steele Roberts in 2012 . Her second collection is Her Limitless Her, published in 2018 by Makaro Press. She has held art residencies in Red Wing Minnesota and the East-West Center Honolulu Hawai’i. As an environmental researcher she has published The Killing Nation: New Zealand’s State-Sponsored Addiction to Poison 1080 and Rural Revolt In Defence of Coromandel’s Wild Kingdom.
Tim Saunders farms sheep and beef near Palmerston North. He has had poetry and short stories published in Turbine, takahē, Landfall and Flash Frontier. He won the 2018 Mindfood Magazine Short Story Competition, and placed third in the 2019 National Flash Fiction Day Awards. He performs poetry around the Manawatu and beyond.
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in The Blue Nib, Cordite Poetry, Headway Quarterly and a number of other literary magazines.
Paul Stothers is a copywriter, screenwriter, novelist and poet from Auckland, New Zealand. His work had been published in Cat Pounce and Bunk.
Rebecca Styles lives in Wellington. She’s had short stories published in New Zealand journals and anthologies, and also writes book reviews. Rebecca has a PhD in creative writing at Massey University where she wrote the manuscript for a novel called Inherited Body. She’s been teaching short story writing at Wellington High School Community Education Centre since 2013.
North Carolina photographer Jo Ann Tomaselli on her art: ‘As artists, we all have goals for the work we create and share. I regard each image a success when it brings even the smallest measure of wonder or joy to those who see it. Inspired by color, shape and design, the process of making photographs continues to intrigue and delight years after picking up my first film camera.’ Access Jo Ann’s portfolio at joanntomaselli.com
Sophia Wilson‘s poetry and short fiction have recently appeared in StylusLit, Not Very Quiet, Ars Medica, Hektoen International Journal, The Australian Poetry Anthology, Intima and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and three children in Otago.
Originally from Scotland, Donna Young lives in New Zealand with her husband and four children. She has written four novels and several award-winning short stories. In 2019 she placed second in the Alexander McCall Smith International Short Story Award, and her story ‘Moireach’ won the Irish Imbas Short Story Award 2017.