NZSA CompleteMS recipients 2026

 

Alwyn Dale

Alwyn Dale is a multi-disciplinary writer based in West Auckland. Whether for screen, print, or tabletop games, his work is genre savvy, immersive, and full of heart. Between 2014 and 2023 he worked on the Power Rangers TV series, including its GLAAD award winning Dino Fury season. Since then he’s enjoyed working on more personal creative work, including becoming a parent.

Ruin’s Wake is Alwyn’s first novel, and he’s excited and grateful to have the help of NZSA’s CompleteMS Assessment Programme to level up this middle-grade fantasy kaiju adventure.

Richard Jakob-Hoff

A lifelong student in Mother Nature’s classroom is how Richard Jakob-Hoff describes himself. From a life-defining experience in Gerald Durrell’s pioneering conservation zoo, he set off across the globe on a mission to save endangered species from extinction. A keen writer from childhood he has published widely in the scientific literature as a wildlife veterinarian and now, after a career spanning more than half a century, he is reaching out to a wider audience with his memoir, “Wild Voices – Answering the call”. He is extremely grateful to the NZSA for this opportunity to have his manuscript professionally reviewed and looks forward to any advice that will help it be the best it can be.

Athena Knight

For Athena Knight, a decade living in Japan shaped her identity and continues to provide inspiration. It led to her PhD in Creative Writing at Massey University, and a thesis entitled Wild Beasts: A Gaijin Female Identity. The creative component of that thesis is her novel-in-stories manuscript Swimming with Jellyfish, which follows three women on the same cultural exchange and teaching programme navigating love, belonging, and self-realisation as gaijin (foreigners) in late 1990s Hiroshima Prefecture. Preparing the manuscript for publication is her next adventure. She is delighted and honoured to receive support from the NZSA CompleteMS Assessment Programme.

Amelia Reynolds

Amelia Reynolds is a writer and actor based in Waikumete. She holds a masters of creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters and has previously studied journalism, public health, and history. Other writing has been published in The Spinoff, Ensemble Magazine, Turbine, and Strong Words 4: The Best of the Landfall Essay Competition.

Lesley Shepherd

Lesley has loved words since she was a little girl. Growing up in South Africa, she became an English teacher, sharing her passion for poetry, literature and drama with her students. She also worked as a freelance journalist, publishing feature articles, short stories and poetry in diverse magazines. After immigrating to New Zealand, she became Head of English at a large Auckland school. While there, she authored and co-authored a range of study guides and workbooks that cover all three levels of the NCEA English qualification. This is her debut novel and she is very excited to have been selected to work with an assessor.

Jane Simpson

Jane Simpson is a Christchurch-based poet and historian. She grew up in a home filled with art and lively debate. After working as a journalist, she gained a PhD (Otago) in religion and gender in New Zealand from 1939 to 1959. Her experience teaching English to Muslim women teachers in a desert school in Abu Dhabi shaped her first full-length poetry collection, A world without maps (2016).

Jane seeks to bring poetry and history together in distinctive ways. Her most recent collection, Shaking the Apple Tree: poems in response to sexual abuse by clergy in the Anglican Church (2024), drew on published evidence from survivors. Through her NZSA Assessor, she hopes to radically review her latest poetry manuscript. www.poiema.co.nz

Lisa Slavich

Lisa Slavich lives in Whangarei. She has a major in Film, Television and Media from Auckland University and has worked in television for a number of years before moving back to Whangarei to raise her family. Watching her young son develop a passion for reading and storytelling reignited her love of writing. She is delighted to be chosen for the NZSA CompleteMS Manuscript Assessment Programme.

 

Peter Aylward

Peter Aylward spent his childhood with his nose in either a novel or a comic book. That’s when he wasn’t typing code into his Commodore VIC-20 plugged into the family TV.
His passion for storytelling was reignited when his son demanded new stories at bedtime every night. Reading them from a book wasn’t good enough.

Bringing together his love of all things computers, marine biology and languages, Ghost Net was born.

Peter writes from Lower Hutt with ready access to his tween beta reader. He has been a member of NZSA for eighteen months and is thrilled to be selected for the CompleteMS assessment.

Olivia Bing

Olivia is a Law student from Tāmaki Makaurau currently working on a middle-grade novel. She is a previous recipient of the New Zealand Society of Authors Mentorship for her first manuscript.

She greatly appreciates being chosen for the NZSA CompleteMS Manuscript Assessment Programme.

Laura Hardcastle

Laura Hardcastle is a lawyer in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She has had a long passion for writing, primarily cosy mysteries. However, that all took a back seat as she balanced the demands of her career, completing a PhD in Law at Victoria University of Wellington and becoming a mother. On parental leave with her second son, she picked up her pen again, completing the first draft of a domestic suspense about a new mother who must convince the rest of the world that she really did see her neighbour’s murder. She looks forward to taking the next step with this manuscript with the assistance of the NZSA CompleteMS Assessment.

Marlon Moala-Knox

Marlon Moala-Knox (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Ranginui, Tongan, British) is a writer (and occasional poet, comedian, or musician) born and raised in Wellington, where he currently works as a librarian. His work has appeared in collections from 4th Floor, Food Court, Turbine | Kapohau, and The Cuba Press. He likes to write fiction that blends different genres, and with the help of this programme he hopes to publish a novel about Wairarapa teenagers having their lives ruined by a supernatural conspiracy.

Penelope Scott

Penelope Scott lives in Mount Maunganui with her three children. She holds a BA in Film and Media Studies and English Literature, along with a diploma in journalism. She is currently at work on her debut literary novel, Kathleen, and is thrilled to be a recipient of the CompleteMS Assessment Programme. She hopes to have the manuscript ready for submission by the end of the year—assuming her children continue to allow her the occasional uninterrupted hour to write.

Erica Stretton

Erica Stretton is a writer from Tāmaki Makaurau who works as editor of Kete Books. She has a Masters in Creative Writing (First Class Honours) from the University of Auckland. Her short fiction has been published in various places, and in 2024 she was awarded a Surrey Hotel residency. The Complete Manuscript assessment will help to progress her manuscript toward publication and she’s delighted to be offered this opportunity.