HBRW 2024 - AGELESS MAGIC

These three spellbinding novels for young readers capture the kind of magic that stays with us all our lives. Catherine Robertson talks to Rachael King, The Grimmelings, Shelley Burne-Field (Samoa, Ngati Mutunga, Ngati Rarua, Pakeha), Brave Kahu and the Porangi Magpie and Claire Mabey, The Raven's Eye Runaways, about the importance of children's fiction and how it shapes us as lifelong readers.

Rachael King:

Rachael King is a well-known New Zealand writer, reviewer, former literary festival director and ex-bass player. She is the author of Red Rocks, a novel for children which won the Esther Glen Medal in 2013 and is currently in development for television by Libertine Pictures (Mystic) and Sky TV. Her novels for adults, The Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall, were together published in nine different languages.

Rachael was the programme director of the WORD Christchurch Festival for eight years until the end of 2021; in her time, it was transformed into an internationally renowned event, partnering with some of the biggest festivals in the world. Her invitation to WORD in 2019 allowed exiled Kurdish writer Behrouz Boochani, author of No Friend but the Mountains, to visit Aotearoa New Zealand, where he successfully applied for asylum after
six years in Australia’s notorious Manus Island detention prison. Rachael received a Waitangi Day Honour Award from the New Zealand Society of Authors for her role in securing his freedom.

In 2023 Rachael was named Best Reviewer at the Voyager New Zealand Media Awards. She lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

Shelley Burne-Field:

Shelley Burne-Field (Sāmoa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Rārua, Pākehā) writes fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. She comes from Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay and is an alum of the University of Auckland’s Master of Creative Writing, as well as the Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme. Her work has appeared in local and international literary journals and anthologies, on Newsroom, E-Tangata and RNZ. In 2022 she was awarded a Surrey Hotel residency and was the only New Zealand finalist in that year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her poem ‘Another Brown Face’ won the Poetry in English category of the 2023 Pikihuia Awards. She has hosted Māori and Pasifika writers’ panels at the Hawke’s Bay Readers and Writers Festival, and appeared as a kaituhi at the CHB Readers and Writers’ Festival Reading between the lines.

Claire Mabey:

Claire Mabey is the founder of Verb Wellington, LitCrawl Wellington and Lōemis. She is also books editor at The Spinoff, book critic at RNZ and co-curator of the writers' programme at the Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts.

Chair: Catherine Robertson

Catherine Robertson is a #1 New Zealand bestselling author, best known for her Gabriel’s Bay trilogy and the children's picture book Pearl in a Whirl, illustrated by Fifi Colston. Catherine is a regular guest on Jesse Mulligan’s Book Critic slot on RNZ, and is current chair of the Hawke’s Bay Readers & Writers Trust. The first two books in Catherine’s debut spicy contemporary romance series are out now.