DAZZLING NEW VOICES

Emma Ling Sidnam is a Wellington-based poet and student. She loves translating life to art and combining wordplay with meaningful messages that connect with people. As a fourth-generation Asian New Zealander, she is passionate about representation and ensuring that all voices are heard. She was awarded the 2022 Michael Gifkins Prize for her manuscript Backwaters, which resulted in a publishing contract with Text and a NZ$10,000 advance against royalties. The annual prize is awarded to an unpublished manuscript by a New Zealand writer, celebrating the life and work of the writer and agent Michael Gifkins.

Born and raised in Pātea, Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Rauru, Ngāruahine) is a writer and a teacher. He teaches at Spotswood College, New Plymouth, and is studying a Master of Teaching and Education Leadership with Ako Mātātupu: Teach first. His writing has appeared in The Spinoff, Newsroom, Headland, Mayhem Literary Journal, Turbine, Takehē Magazine, Huia Short Stories and elsewhere. The Bone Tree is his first novel, and will be published by Moa Press in September 2023.

Colleen Maria Lenihan (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) is a fiction writer, screenwriter and photographer, and a graduate of Te Papa Tupu and The Creative Hub. After fifteen years in Tokyo and a year in New York City, Colleen returned to Tāmaki Makaurau in 2016 where she is now based. Her writing has appeared in Newsroom’s Reading Room, the NZ Herald and The Pantograph Punch, and Kōhine is her first book. Colleen has been awarded several residencies: Michael King Writers’ Centre Emerging Māori Writer (2019); Newsroom/Surrey Hotel Winner (2019); and the Dan Davin Literary Foundation (2021). Colleen is currently screenwriting for Ahikāroa, a drama on Māori TV and is the International Institute of Modern Letters and Creative New Zealand Emerging Māori Writer in Residence at Victoria University in 2023.

Paula Morris MNZM (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Manuhiri) is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, essayist and editor from New Zealand. She holds degrees from universities in New Zealand, the U.K. and the US, including a D.Phil from the University of York and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature and Wharerangi, the Māori literature hub, director of the Master in Creative Writing programme at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.