Guest Authors

Tina Shaw has published fiction for adults and young people. The Children’s Pond was shortlisted for the 2015 Ngaio Marsh Awards, and her children’s publishing includes the YA novel About Griffen's Heart which was a Storylines Notable Book in 2010 and was shortlisted for the 2010 LIANZA Children's Book Awards. Tina was the recipient of the Creative NZ Berlin Writers’ Residency, an experience that contributed to her novel The Black Madonna. She is an experienced tutor and assessor of creative writing.

Jenny Argante is editor-in-chief of Freelance – Writers Helping Writers, the only magazine for creative writers of all kinds in New Zealand-Aotearoa, and now 35 years old. She is also President this year of Tauranga Writers, which is celebrating its 50^th birthday with an ongoing programme of events. Jenny has taught creative writing for over thirty years, and is well-published, mainly in New Zealand and the UK. A professional editor and writer, Jenny’s books include After the Act (short stories), Working in the Cracks Between (poetry), I as in Identity: Writing Based on Personal & Family History, Korero Purakau – Telling Tales, Constructive Editing and George and the Taniwha, among others.

Sue Emms overcame a teacher’s declaration that she was ‘too stupid to ever read’ to become one of those annoying kids who lived with her head inside a book, magazine, or newspaper. Not too much has changed in the last fifty or so years, except she added a love of writing to her love of reading.

Emms has published novels, short stories, poetry and nonfiction in New Zealand and internationally, worked as a literary editor, manuscript assessor and editor, and teaches creative writing classes for the Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology.

She is currently rewriting The Kindred Stone, and hopes to publish in 2017.

Kathryn Burnett is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright, script development consultant and workshop facilitator who has worked in film and television for over 20 years. She was recently shortlisted for the 2017 Adams Best New Play Award and is also a Qantas Media Award winning columnist and published author. She has significant television and film credits including writer on the recent TVNZ children’s series “The Cul de Sac.”

Follow Kathryn on Facebook - (here's the link - https://www.facebook.com/workshopswriting/)