Arielle Walker (Taranaki, Ngāruahine, Ngā Puhi, Pākehā) is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based contemporary artist, writer and maker. Having just completed a Master of Visual Arts at AUT University, her practice seeks pathways towards reciprocal belonging through the intersections and connections between land, language, and craft, focusing on tactile storytelling and ancestral narratives.

Rhegan Tu‘akoi is a Tongan/Pākehā living in Pōneke. She is a Master’s student at Victoria and her words have appeared in Stasis, Sweet Mammalian and Mayhem, among others.

Ko Siobhan tōku ingoa. A fat Takatāpui activist Māmā from Otautahi.

Ko Rangimiria Ihakara tōku ingoa. No Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Ngāti Konohi me Ngāti Kuri ahau. I am grateful and fortunate to have been chosen to write a short story for this kaupapa. Writing about te ao Māori has always been a passion of mine. Me mihi nui ki te wahine rerehua nāna ahau i poipoi, i manaaki kia eke taku tuhinga ki tētahi taumata anō, a Ataria Rangipikitia. 

Saraid de Silva is a Sri Lankan Pākehā writer and creative based in Tāmaki. She works across the mediums of radio, theatre and television and will graduate from Auckland University’s Masters of Creative Writing program in 2021.

Jessica Maclean is a seedling of Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Hine, Clan MacGill-Eain and Clan Ó Eaghra. Borne along by various winds and tides, she came to rest in Ōtautahi, where she has remained since.

Anne-Marie Te Whiu (Annie) was born and raised in Brisbane and is a Te Rarawa descendant. She is the co-editor of Solid Air: Australian and New Zealand Spoken Word and was co-director of the Queensland Poetry Festival from 2015 to 2017.   She currently lives on Dharawal land where she loves writing and weaving. Her mahi is at Red Room Poetry in Sydney where she is a Senior Project Manager.

Blaze Forbes is a secondhand bookdealer, from Tāmaki Makaurau, of Samoan & Scottish descent.

Rex has Samoan/Chinese/French/Danish roots. His poetry and storytelling act as a wayfinding tool back to his cultural and gender identity. He navigates the loss, grief, and shame that has been learned from growing up in a society built on the values of white supremacy. His work is a journey of unlearning and relearning new beginnings. His nana was a healer in her village, he hopes he carries her spirit in his words.

Geraldine Warren (Ngati Porou/Ngati Kahungunu) studied Masters of Arts in Creative Writing at IIML, VUW Wellington. She is a past member of Banana Boat- Pasifika & Maori creatives ; has published in  Oranui 2 Special Edition ; Turbine/Kapohau 2019 and Story Board 13: A journal of Pacific Imagery (UOG).

Sinead Overbye (Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata) is a poet and fiction writer living in Wellington. In 2018 she completed her MA in creative writing at the IIML. She founded and co-edits Stasis Journal. Her work can be found in The Pantograph Punch, Tupuranga Journal, Turbine | Kapohau, Starling, and other places.

Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe a Waitaha/Pākehā) is a journalist for daily paper The News in Westport. Her first novel Auē won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and the MitoQ Hubert Church Best First Book award at the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book awards. She has written essays for The Spinoff, E-Tangata, and Newsroom. She lives in Waimangaroa with her children, husband, and dad.

She is working on her next novel Papahaua.

Ataria Rangipikitia Sharman (Ngāpuhi, Tapuika) is a writer, Kaiwāwāhi Kaupapa Māori of the Pantograph Punch and creator of AwaWahine.com. Ataria has a Master of Arts in Māori Studies on Mana Wahine and the Atua Wāhine. She was an event curator for Verb Festival 2019 and Ataria's manuscript for children's fiction novel 'Hine, Pakū and the Tohunga's Portal' was one of five selected for Te Papa Tupu 2018.  Hine, Pakū and the Tohunga Portal is going to to be published by Huia Publishers in June 2021. Ataria's writing has been published on E-Tangata and her poetry featured in IHO: A Collaborative Exhibition about Māori Hair. Ataria grew up in Te Whanganui a Tara and now lives in Whangārei, Te Tai Tokerau with her partner Te Piha Niha. 

Jacqs (Jacqueline Carter) is Te Patuwai of Ngāti Awa and Waitaha iwi, Ngāi Tūkairangi of Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Pākehā, with links to Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maru and Ngāi Tai through her own whakapapa, and Ngāti Pākau of Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Tū of Ngāruahine through her children’s. She’s a mother, teacher, composer and poet, and she’s just begun a Master of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. Her work has been published in various anthologies, including Whetū Moana and Mauri Ola (both edited by Robert Sullivan, Albert

Wendt and Reina Whaitiri), Puna Wai Kōrero (edited by Robert Sullivan and Reina Whaitiri) and all editions of Anton Blank’s Ora Nui. She is yet to publish her own collection, so was unsure about mentoring anybody but was thrilled she was persuaded to after her first zui with Annie, or Anne-Marie Te Whiu – they hit it off immediately and even though Anne-Marie was the tuakana in age and every other respect also, she pretended to let Jacqs mentor her while they just had some really good korero! “Nā, anō te pai, anō te āhuareka o te nohoanga o ngā tēina, o ngā tuākana i runga i te whakaaro kotahi” (Waiata 133:1).

Grace Iwashita-Taylor, breathing bloodlines of Samoa, England and Japan. An artist of upu/words led her to the world of theatre. Dedicated to carving, elevating and holding spaces for storytellers of Te Moana nui a Kiwa. Recipient of the CNZ Emerging Pacific Artist 2014 and the Auckland Mayoral Writers Grant 2016, Writer in residence at the University of Hawaii 2018, Co-Founder of the Rising Voices and the South Auckland Poets Collective and published collections Afakasi Speaks & Full Broken Bloom. Writer of MY OWN DARLING and Curator of UPU (Auckland Arts Festival 2020).

Born in Turanganui a Kiwa and affiliated to Ngāti Porou, Moriori and Ngāti Mutunga, George Watson graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts from Elam school of Fine Arts in 2016. George has recently returned to Tamaki Makaurau after completing the Maumaus Independent Study Programme in Lisbon, Portugal. Recent work includes 'Eternal Girlhood of the Settler State' Presented by Mayfair Art Fair in collaboration with Tyson Campbell (2020).

Victor Rodger is an award winning playwright and producer of Samoan (Iva) and Scottish (Dundee) descent.  His plays Black Faggot and My Name is Gary Cooper have been performed nationally and internationally and earlier this year he produced Tusiata Avia's Wild Dogs Under My Skirt at the SoHo Playhouse Off-Broadway  He has held several writing residencies throughout New Zealand and convenes Te Hiringa a Tuhi, the Maori and Pasifika creative writing workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.  His short story Like Shinderella is featured in Black Marks on the White Page and his latest story, Donny's Dialogue was published by Verb Wellington during lockdown.

Tusiata Avia is a poet, performer and writer. She has published three books of poetry, a chapbook, three children’s books and is included in over 100 anthologies, journals and online publications. Tusiata has held a number of writers’ residencies and awards, including the CNZ Fulbright Pacific Writer’s Fellowship at University of Hawai’i and the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award.  Known for her dynamic performance style, she wrote and then performed Wild Dogs Under My Skirt as a one-woman show (2002-2009). In 2016 it became a multi award-winning play for 6 women, directed by Anapela Polata’ivao. In January 2020 Wild Dogs Under My Skirt made its American debut, Off- Broadway.

essa may ranapiri (Ngāti Wehi Wehi, Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-Tonga, Te Arawa, Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Pukeko, Ngāti Takatāpui, Clan Gunn, Highgate) is a poet from Kirikiriroa. They will write until they’re dead.

Hana Pera Aoake (Ngaati Mahuta, Ngaati Raukawa, Tainui/Waikato) is an artist, writer and editor, currently based in Te wai pounamu on Kaai Tahu land. They hold an MFA (First class) in Fine Arts and are studying at Maumaus escola de artes visuais. In 2014 they co-founded the indigenous collective, Fresh and Fruity and work now as an editor on Tupuranga journal and Kei te pai press.