WITI & FRIENDS GALA NIGHT

Witi Ihimaera is one of New Zealand’s most prolific and accomplished writers. Witi’s first novel, Tangi, won the Wattie Book of the Year Award in 1974, a feat he repeated with The Matriarch in 1986. His celebrated novel Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies, now adapted as the film Mahana, won the Montana Book of the Year award in 1995. Witi’s other novels and short story collections include The Whale Rider (also adapted as an internationally successful film); Dream Swimmer (sequel to the award-winning The Matriarch); Pounamu, Pounamu and Nights In The Gardens of Spain. In 2015 he published the first volume of his autobiography, Māori Boy, and the second volume, Native Son, came out in 2019. The 50th anniversary edition of this award-winning debut novel, Tangi, has just been published by Penguin. He has also edited Ngā Kupu Wero, which brings together a bounty of essays, articles, commentary and creative non-fiction on the political, cultural and social issues that challenge us today. 

Dr Emma Espiner née Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) is a writer, political commentator and surgical registrar at Middlemore Hospital.  She was the Voyager Opinion Writer of the Year 2020 and her podcast Getting Better- A Year in the Life of a Maori Medical Student won Voyager Best Narrative Podcast of the year in 2021. Emma’s writing has been published in media outlets, academic and literary journals. Her debut memoir is There’s a Cure for This. 

Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa) is widely published across several genre in both his main languages, te reo Māori and English and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, Mandarin, Romanian, Spanish. He earned a Ph. D from the University of Auckland with a thesis about Colin Wilson and writes extensively about Wilson. Vaughan is also a poet, with nine collections published in Hong Kong SAR; Macau; Philippines; USA; England; France, India, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Atonement (UST Press, Manila) was nominated for a National Book Award in Philippines (2016); he won the inaugural Proverse Poetry Prize the same year; and was included in Best New Zealand Poems (2017). Rapatahana is one of the few World authors who consistently writes in and is published in te reo Māori (the Māori language). It is his mission to continue to do so and to push for a far wider recognition of the need to write and to be published in this tongue. 

Ruby Solly (Kāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe) is a writer, musician and taonga pūoro practitioner living in Pōneke. Her first book, Tōku Pāpā, was published in 2021 and longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She has had poetry published in Aotearoa, Australia, America and Antarctica. In 2020 she released her debut album, Pōneke, and in 2021, Bird Like Men, as part of the group Tararua. She is currently completing a PhD in public health, focusing on the use of taonga pūoro in hauora Māori.

Donna McLeod (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Rarua) is mana whenua in Te Tauihu and lives on papakainga in Motueka. She is a writer and performer of Te Oro Hā, a member of Te Ohu Whakaari, and curator of Toi Māori at Te Noninga Kumu (Motueka Public Library). Donna is published in Te Awa o Kupu (Penguin, 2023), Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety (VUP, 2018) and Eastbourne: An Anthology (Mākaro Press, 2013). She has also had poetry published on The Spinoff. 

Arihia Latham (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) is a writer, rongoā practitioner and cultural advisor based in Te Whanganui a Tara. Her work has been widely published and anthologised and she presents often at arts and writing festivals. Her poetry collection Birdspeak is out in July 2023. 

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.