John Cranna

The Creative Hub was founded by John Cranna, a former Chair of the Auckland Society of Authors. John has published two books of fiction, Visitors and Arena, one of non-fiction and has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, and the NZ Book Award for Fiction. He grew up in NZ but lived for ten years in Kings Cross, London where he worked as a community organiser and editor. His books have been published in Australia, UK and France. His screenplay for the short film Accidents was shown at the Venice Film Festival and other festivals around the world. From 2000 to 2005 he was managing editor of AA Directions, which then rose from fifth to most-read magazine in NZ. He founded the AUT University Centre for Modern Writing in 2007, where he designed the Master of Creative Writing course, and was voted Best Post-Graduate Teacher by students at the University in 2008.

Yvonne van Dongen

Yvonne van Dongen is one of New Zealand's most respected travel writers and editors. For a number of years she was Travel Editor of the New Zealand Herald, and subsequently, Travel Editor of onHoliday Magazine. She writes regularly for NZ Life & Leisure, The Australian, AA Directions, Conde Nast Traveller, and North and South Magazine among others. She has won a number of awards for her travel writing, including Best Tourism and Travel column in the Qantas Media Awards, Lifestyle Journalist of the Year, two Commonwealth Media Awards (including to study at Cambridge University in the UK), and Cathay Pacific Media Writer of the Year. Yvonne has also published two books, and had successes in playwrighting, screenwriting and short story writing. She has taught travel writing at a variety of venues, including at the University of Auckland.

Paula Morris

Paula Morris is of pakeha and Ngāti Wai ancestry, was born in Auckland, went to Auckland University and is the author of four novels, and the editor of The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (2009). Her first novel, Queen of Beauty, won the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing. Her short story collection Forbidden Cities (Penguin, 2008) was a regional finalist in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Paula has worked in London for the BBC and in New York as a publicist for several record companies. A graduate of Bill Manhire’s Victoria University Creative Writing Course and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she teaches creative writing at Tulane University, New Orleans. She was a guest at the 2010 Auckland Writers and Readers Week. www.paula-morris.com 

Roger Hall

Roger is New Zealand's most successful playwright. His best-known play in New Zealand is probably Glide Time (1976). It gave rise to the popular 1980s television series Gliding On and a sequel play, Market Forces (1995), set in the "restructured" public service environment of the post-Rogernomics era. Roger's best-known works internationally are Middle Age Spread (1978), which had a run in the West End and was also filmed in 1979, and Conjugal Rites (1991), which was made into a situation comedy series in the UK. Roger’s more recent work includes The Book Club (1999), and Take a Chance on Me (2001). A Way of Life (2001) was a new departure, a drama about three generations of a farming family in NZ. Roger has also published an autobiography, Bums on Seats (1998). www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hall

Janice Marriott

Janice Marriott is one of the most experienced deliverers of children’s writing courses in the country. She has tutored creative writing and poetry, and is a member of the NZ Association of Manuscript Assessors, through which she regularly assesses manuscripts for publication. She has judged national short story competitions, and given workshops in creative writing throughout the country. In 2011 she judged the Ronald Hugh Morrieson Competition, and delivered workshops at Katherine Mansfield House in Wellington, in Taumarunui and Taranaki. She regularly visits schools as part of the New Zealand Book Council Writers-in-School scheme and participates in Storylines Festivals. Winner of the Aim Book of the Year Award, the NZ Post Award for Junior Fiction, and the Esther Glen Medal. www.janicemarriott.com

Sarah Laing

Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and graphic designer. She was born in the USA and has lived in New York and Germany before coming to NZ at the age of 17. Her first collection of short stories, Coming up Roses (2007), was released after she won the 2006 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition. Sarah was Writer in Residence at the Michael King Writers' Centre in 2008, and is one of the 2010 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellows. She published her first novel, Dead People’s Music (Vintage), in 2009, and lives in Auckland. Sarah writes, “I come from a visual background and spend quite a lot of time describing the concrete world. I started off thinking I was going to be a poet so I pay a lot of attention to words. I also love pretending to be an analyst, trying to figure out motivations for people’s peculiar behavior.” www.poppyshock.com

Tessa Duder

Tessa Duder is one of New Zealand's most recognised writers. Her Alex novels won her three New Zealand Children's Book of the Year awards and three Esther Glen medals, and are published in America, Britain, Australia and Canada. Alex is published in five languages, with Jellybean and Alex in Winter in two. Since winning her first grant in 1985, the Choysa Bursary for Children's Writers, Tessa has been awarded several Creative New Zealand (Arts Council) grants, including a Special Writing Bursary in 1989, the first Writer-in-Residence Fellowship at the University of Waikato in 1991 and the Literary Exchange Fellowship to Australia in 1993. Under the NZ Book Council's Writers-in-Schools scheme, she has visited hundreds of classrooms all over the country since 1987, and has spoken at many professional seminars of teachers, librarians and parents, including international conferences in Stockholm, Florida, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington. Her website www.tessaduder.com gives a comprehensive overview of her publications, along with a short biography and texts of speeches given at various children’s literature conferences. 

Tina Shaw

Tina Shaw is the author of many books for adults, children and young adults. Her most recent literary novel for adults is The Black Madonna (Penguin Books). Her short stories have been published in anthologies, literary journals and magazines. She is a winner of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship, has held the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers’ Residency, and was Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato in 2005. She has also written junior and young adult fiction, including Into the Hinterland, and its sequel Dogs of the Hinterland as well as books for the 'Kiwi Bites' and 'Mainsails' series. Her young adult novel About Griffen's Heart was published by Longacre Press in 2009 and was listed as a 2010 Storylines Notable Book. Tina was a mentor for the AUT University Master of Creative Writing course, and has many years experience as a manuscript assessor. Her website is www.tinashaw.co.nz

Judith White

Judith has won a number of awards for her short fiction, including the 1989 BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award. She has twice won the Auckland Star short story competition, in 1987 and 1990. In 1996, White was the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellow. Her first collection of short fiction, Visiting Ghosts (1991), was shortlisted for the fiction section of what is now known as the Montana New Zealand Books Awards. Her novel Across the Dreaming Night (1999) was shortlisted for the fiction section of the 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.  In the Sunday Star Times Iain Sharpe writes: 'White is second to none when it comes to depicting states of anxiety, both comic and poignant. And the brilliance with which she enters into her characters' aberrant states of mind, signals a major talent.'

Alan Brash

Alan has worked in film & TV since 1991, doing everything from acting to production accounting. For the last 16 years he has primarily worked as a screenwriter, storyliner, script editor, producer, script consultant, and lecturer. He created the TV3 dramedy The Strip and headed the script department for two series. He has written and story-lined Shortland Street, been a script editor on the comedy series Pio! and the film The Irrefutable Truth About Demons, has produced short films and a one-off comedy for TVNZ. Alan has lectured screen writing at various institutions, including Unitec and Auckland University’s Centre for Continuing Education and has been the development executive at The Gibson Group and Screentime Communicado. His directing debut, Be Careful… (which he also wrote and produced), screened at the Show Me Shorts Film Fesitval (2010), and will screen at the Magma Film Festival in 2011.

Christina Milligan

Christina Milligan has over 25 years experience in the film and television industry as a producer, writer and script executive, working in both the public and private sectors. Her television writing credits include the top-ranked Australian dramas McLeod's Daughters and All Saints. Her script editing credits include the hit television series Gloss and Erebus: The Aftermath, and the Emmy-nominated historical New Zealand series Hanlon. As a producer she shared an NZ Best Film Award with Ian Mune for his feature adaptation of Bruce Mason's The End of the Golden Weather and she has recently produced Nights in the Garden of Spain, an adaptation of the Witi Ihimaera novel. As an executive producer her short film work includes the 2010 Berlin Film Festival winner Aphrodite's Farm and 2010 Sundance hit This Is Her.

Graham is one of New Zealand's most respected journalists and authors. He writes travel, arts, music and political journalism, and has taught journalism and feature writing at AUT University. He currently lectures part-time in music at Auckland University and is a regular commentator on public radio. He was a senior journalist at the New Zealand Herald for 17 years, where he became synonymous with lively and wide-ranging articles on music, travel, politics and books.  Since then, as a freelancer, his writing has appeared in the Herald, the Listener, Art News, Idealog, Life and Leisure, Weekend magazine, the Herald on Sunday, Real Groove and elsewhere. His first book, Postcards From Elsewhere, won the 2006 Whitcoulls' Travel Book of the Year award; his second, The Idiot Boy Who Flew, won the Whitcoulls' Readers' Choice Award in 2010. Graham hosts his own music/arts/travel website at www.elsewhere.co.nz

Geoff Walker

Geoff is one of New Zealand’s most experienced publishers. He recently stepped down as publishing director of Penguin New Zealand, where he was responsible for building Penguin’s local publishing list. He is highly regarded in the New Zealand publishing industry and has published many of New Zealand’s leading writers, including Michael King, Maurice Gee, Lloyd Jones, Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace and Anne Salmond. Books by these authors have won many awards. Before joining Penguin, Geoff was associate publisher at Reed Publishers. He is also a former newspaper, radio and television journalist. Geoff knows the publishing industry inside out. He has steered literally hundreds of books through the publishing process, and is passionate about language, books and writing.

Dr Deborah Shepard is an author, mentor and teacher of life writing, whose published work over the last decade has included Her Life’s Work: Conversations with Five New Zealand Women, Between the Lives: Partners in Art and Reframing Women: A History of New Zealand Film. In 2010 she was author/mentor on the First Chapters writing programme in Manukau and Papakura, South Auckland, where she mentored 30 new writers and edited eleven of their life stories for the publication Translucence: Life Writing from Manukau and Papakura. Deborah’s latest book project is Writing Your Heart Out: A Guide to Life Writing and some of her work in progress will be used on the course she tutors for The Creative Hub. She is also a film and art historian and has lectured at the University of Auckland’s Film, TV and Media Studies Department.