Fantasy

Mark is a full-time author/publisher who loves stories that make you laugh, think or dream. He spends a lot of time in his imagination and relishes the challenge of creating picture books for the enjoyment of kids and adults alike. His book Baa Baa Smart Sheep won the Children’s Choice at the NZ Post Book Awards 2011.

In 1992, Nina Rycroft graduated with a diploma in graphic design and worked
as a designer in Sydney and London before turning her hand to illustration,
her first picture book 'Little Platypus', (Nette Hilton 2000), received a
CBCA notable book in 2001 and is currently listed on the NSW Premier Reading
challenge.

Children’s book author and illustrator Gavin Bishop has won numerous national and international awards for his distinctive ink and watercolour illustrations and his original text. Bishop's illustrations have been exhibited at international shows from Japan to Czechoslovakia, and he has appeared as a teacher and guest speaker at many international forums. He has been commissioned to write and design several successful ballets for the Royal NZ Ballet Company and was awarded the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award in 2008. Piano Rock, published in 2008, serves as Bishop's early autobiography, full of tales and illustrations of his childhood years in the railway town of Kingston. The Storylines Gavin Bishop Award was established in 2009 in recognition of his contribution to children's literature.

Helen Lowe is a fiction writer, poet and broadcaster. Her writing has appeared in journals, magazines and in print and online anthologies. She has won awards for her fiction and poetry and her first novel Thornspell (2008) garnered significant recognition in New Zealand and in the USA. Thornspell was selected as a Storylines New Zealand Children's Literature Trust Notable Book (2008), and won the Sir Julius Vogel Award (2009) for Best Novel, Young Adult. Helen herself won the Sir Julius Vogel award for Best New Talent, also in 2009.

Melinda Szymanik is a writer for children and young adults, inspired by television, magazines, world events, history, children and the complex process of ‘growing-up’. She has had stories published in several journals and anthologies. Szymanik wrote the junior novel Jack the Viking when she was in the NZSA’s mentoring programme from 2005-06. She has twice been short-listed for the Joy Cowley Award, in 2003 and 2006.

Barbara Else is novelist and editor, and also works as a literary agent and manuscript assessor. Known for the sharp humour in her writing, Else won the Victoria University Writer’s Fellowship in 1999, and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 2005. She also received the Creative NZ Scholarship in Letters in 2004 to write the historical novel Wild Latitudes. Else has edited several collections of writing for children and is available to visit schools.

Barbara's latest publication (due out in late September) is Great Mates: 30 New Zealand Stories for Children. In the latest in this ever-popular series of children’s anthologies, Barbara Else has hand-picked the best tales of friendship. Philip Webb has lovingly illustrated each one in a quirky style that helps us imagine the world of each story.

Friendship is a universal theme for Kiwi kids. This collection of 30 New Zealand stories about friends covers a range of emotions and situations: being the new kid at school, competing with friends, sharing adventures and jokes, getting furious with your friends and finding friends in unexpected places.

Barbara's novel The Travelling Restaurant has been selected as the New Zealand 2012 IBBY Honour Book for Writing.

Hawke's Bay author Deborah Burnside has written short stories, junior fiction and a picture-book. She was also instrumental in setting up The Hawke’s Bay Writing Competition, popular with writers in the region.

Raymond Huber is a writer, editor and teacher. Sting (Walker Books, 2009) is his first children’s novel, told from a bee’s viewpoint. Sharon Greenway (Magpies) describes it as a ‘…wonderfully imaginative story.’ A sequel (Wings) will be published by Walker Books early 2011, and a non-fiction picture book Flight of the Honey Bee. Huber has written English and Science workbooks, articles for the School Journal and short stories in Hideous and Hilarious (2007) and Showtime (2008), Random House NZ. His website is www.raymondhuber.co.nz.

Janice Marriott is a writer of fiction and non-fiction for adult and child readers. In 1994 she was the inaugural writer-in-residence at the Auckland College of Education. She won the 1996 Aim Supreme Award and Senior Fiction Award, and in 2007 she won the Junior Fiction Category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. She was also a finalist in the Non-Fiction section. Marriott’s writing for adults has appeared in magazines and on radio.

Born and raised in Hamilton, Ross Kinnaird is an illustrator. He first began illustrating children’s books in 2002 with the popular Why Do Dogs Sniff Bottoms?, by Dawn McMillan, which won the Children’s Choice Award at the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. He has since gone on to illustrate several books, including two written by William Taylor for the ‘Kiwi Bites’ series. In 2007, his collaboration with Sharon Holt, It’s True! You Can Make Your Own Jokes, was nominated as a finalist in the non-fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards.