Anne Kennedy is a fiction writer, poet, and screenplay editor. Her latest book Moth Hour (AUP) was short-listed in the 2020 Ockham Book Awards. The novel, The Ice Shelf (VUP), appeared in 2018. Awards and residencies include the NZ Post Book Award for Poetry, the Montana Book Award for Poetry, the University of Iowa International Writers’ Program, and the IIML Writers’ Residency.

Lee Murray is a multi-award-winning author-editor from Aotearoa-New Zealand (12 Sir Julius Vogel, 3 Australian Shadows), and a two-time Bram Stoker Award®-winner. A Shirley Jackson, Aurealis, and Imadjinn Awards finalist, her work includes military thrillers, the Taine McKenna Adventures, supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), and debut collection Grotesque: Monster Stories. She is proud to have edited seventeen volumes of speculative fiction, including international Bram Stoker Award®-winning title Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women co-edited with Geneve Flynn. Her latest work is non-fiction title Mark My Words: Read the Submission Guidelines and Other Self-editing Tips co-authored with Angela Yuriko Smith. She is co-founder of Young NZ Writers and of the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers, HWA Mentor of the Year for 2019, NZSA Honorary Literary Fellow, and Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow for 2021 for her poetry collection Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud. 

James George is a novelist and short story writer of Ngapuhi, English and Irish descent. He is author of Wooden Horses, Hummingbird, and Ocean Roads. His works have been twice shortlisted for Montana NZ Book Awards, the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and Pacific Region.) James teaches and supervises on the Master of Creative Writing programme at AUT University in Auckland. He served as chair of the Auckland Branch of the NZ Society of Authors, (2012-2014) and as chair of Te Ha, the writers committee of Toi Maori Aotearoa, (2005-2019) and is a trustee of Toi Maori Aotearoa. He is working on his fourth novel, Sleepwalkers Songs, and fifth, Two Rivers.

Kiri Piahana-Wong is of Māori (Ngāti Ranginui), Chinese and Pākehā (English) ancestry. She is a poet and editor, and is the publisher at Anahera Press. Anahera publishes and promotes the work of Māori and Pasifika poets, and has also published one novel. Kiri’s first poetry collection, Night Swimming, was released in 2013 and her second, Give Me An Ordinary Day, is due out next year. Kiri was an MC at Poetry Live, NZ’s longest-running live poetry venue, for six years. She lives in Mt Roskill with her partner and son.

Vasanti Unka is a picture book creator who writes, illustrates and designs books for ages, 4 – 108 year olds. Over the years, her work has won or been shortlisted for a range of awards. In 2014 The Boring Book won the NZ Book Awards for Children. It also won international acclaim, receiving a White Ravens Award and was an IBBY Honour book. Vasanti Unka was the compiler of With A Suitcase Of Saris: From India To Aotearoa: Stories Of Pioneer Indian Women (2017). Her latest book, I am the Universe, won the Booksellers best kids book for 2021. She was born in Pukekohe and presently works out of her sunroom in Auckland.

Anita Arlov writes poems and flash and occasionally judges comps and runs workshops. She hosts the monthly gig Inside.Out Open Mic for Writers. Anita won the Divine Muses Poet Competition in 2017, and convened a team that staged the NZ Poetry Conference & Festival-Auckland 2017. In 2018 she gained first place in NZ’s national flash competition and placed second in the June 2019 Bath Flash Fiction competition. She is widely published in journals and anthologies including Bonsai, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, Flash Frontier, The Phare, Takahe, Best of Auckland and Eight Poems 2020.

Lee Murray is a multi-award-winning author-editor from Aotearoa-New Zealand (Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows), and a five-time Bram Stoker Award®-nominee. Her work includes military thrillers, the Taine McKenna Adventures, supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), and debut collection Grotesque: Monster Stories. She is proud to have edited sixteen volumes of speculative fiction, including several international award-winning titles. She is co-founder of Young NZ Writers and of the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers, HWA Mentor of the Year for 2019, NZSA Honorary Literary Fellow, and Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow for 2021 for her poetry collection Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud.

Jack Remiel Cottrell (Ngāti Rangi) is a Wellington-born cryptid who now lurks in central Auckland, surfacing mainly for rugby and cricket.
Jack specialises in writing flash fiction, and received the 2020 Sir James Wallace Prize for his collection of flash and microfiction Ten Acceptable Acts of Arson and other very short stories, which will be published by Canterbury University Press in August.
In the past two years he has been nominated three times for Best Small Fictions, and shortlisted for a Sir Julius Vogel Award. He promises to one day write something longer than 1000 words. No indication of when, however.