One Day A Taniwha Book Launch

Speakers

• Anahera Gildea
  Anahera Gildea

  Anahera Gildea (Ngāti Tukorehe, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāi Te Rangi, Kāi Tahu) is a poet, artist, facilitator, and publisher whose creative practice emerges from the living relationships between language, whakapapa, and whenua.

  Her poetry explores memory, justice, humour, and belonging, inviting audiences into spaces where stories reconnect people to one another, to place, and to those who came before.

  She also works with writers, artists, and communities throughout Aotearoa exploring Indigenous approaches to storytelling. She believes that every act of creation is an act of relationship and an opportunity to imagine new futures together.

• Fergus Porteous
  Fergus Porteous

  Fergus Porteous (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Matakore) is a writer and lawyer from Ngāmotu living in Paraparaumu.

  In 2020 he completed a master’s in creative writing at the IIML. His writing has been published on Newsroom, Landfall, RNZ, and The Artpaper. In 2023 he was runner-up for best first-person essay at the Voyager Media Awards.

• Pera Barrett
  Pera Barrett

  Pera Barrett (Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Te Atiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira) is a writer, carver, and rapper from Ōtaki.

  He founded Shoebox Christmas, a national initiative delivering Christmas presents to tamariki across Aotearoa, and was awarded New Zealand Local Hero of the Year 2019.

• Tihema Baker
  Tihema Baker

  Tihema Baker (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira) is a writer from Ōtaki. His writing often explores the complex interactions between and within te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā, based on personal and professional experience. He is the author of satirical novel Turncoat, which was longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024, a young adult novel series, and various short stories and essays.