NZSA Mentor Programme recipients of 2025
Kirstie Baker-Slater
After promising her grandmother aged six that she would be an author when she grew up, life had other ideas, trapping Kirstie in the corporate finance world for over twenty years.
A purposeful pause in 2023 saw her finally reconnect with that childhood dream, studying with Annabel Lyon and Nancy Lee and learning from these incredible Canadian authors how to outline and then first draft a technically crafted tale.
Whilst her heart and soul have been written into the first drafts of her debut novel, Kirstie knows she has languished too long within its languaging and now requires mentorship and guidance as she tackles its ‘commercial propulsion’ re-write. She is humbled and beyond excited to have been chosen for this programme.
Kirstie lives by the sea with one dog, one child and one husband, and a staggeringly disproportionate number of books and jigsaws.
Julie Biuso
Julie Biuso has been a writer, magazine food editor and radio and television broadcaster for over forty years. She is the author of 17 food books, many of which have received international awards, and she has contributed to numerous other charity publishing projects.
Although she has always aspired to write a novel, raising a family and other commitments took priority. She was inspired by Barbara Anderson whose book Portrait of an Artist’s Wife won the top award at the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards in 1992, the same year that Julie received a category award for her book Julie Biuso Cooks Vegetables. At the time of her win, Barbara was in her sixties, and Julie recalls thinking that the moment would surely come when she, too, would write a novel.
In 2015, Julie moved to Waiheke where she launched www.sharedkitchen.co.nz, a premium subscription site offering monthly recipe-based newsletters, food archives and blogs that cover gardening and food tips, and snippets about her island life. She also co-ran and regularly wrote and performed her own poems for the island’s Song & Poetry Thing for five years.
At 70, Julie is a newly minted Master of Creative Writing (University of Auckland 2024). She says she is thrilled to receive the Mentorship and will use the opportunity to develop and complete her first work of fiction.
Sheryn Dean
Sheryn Dean is a researcher, writer, and practitioner of growing her own food. She has learnt that pigs have hangovers, fungi can replicate sex pheromones, and that in nurturing nature, we nurture ourselves. She has shared her experiences in numerous magazines over the past 20 years but collating them into a book has proved elusive. Attempting to be entertaining, convey the humility required to work with nature, the knowledge from her experiences, and warn of the snake in her paradise, has resulted in many discarded attempts. Always one to set high goals – is she attempting too much? Confusion and despondence flipped to excitement and determination when she learnt of her mentorship. Watch this space!
Nicola Dennis
Nicola is a freelance writer and data scientist living on a sheep and beef farm in coastal Otago. After years of nonfiction writing and programming computers and lab equipment, Nicola is diving head first into her daydreams with a middle-grade action/comedy novel featuring robotically-enhanced sheep. Delighted, honoured and slightly terrified, Nicola will use this amazing mentorship opportunity to develop her debut novel.
Emma Harris
Emma lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. She has a Masters in Health Science, a BA in Sociology, is a mother to two adult children and works fulltime as a psychotherapist.
In recent years she has found time to return to her love of writing. She won first place the 2024 Graeme Lay short story competition, was shortlisted in the 2022 Te Tauihu awards and had a piece of short fiction published in Reading Room in 2021.
Emma is currently working on a short story collection and is grateful for this mentorship opportunity to progress her writing.
Niamh Hollis-Locke
Niamh Hollis-Locke is a poet, writer, and chronic hobby-acquirer. Born in the UK but now based in Te Whanganui-a-tara, Niamh holds a BA in English Literature and History, a BA(Hons) (First Class) in English Literature with a thesis on Tolkien’s Monsters, and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing (thesis on ecofiction & Cormac McCarthy’s The Road). Her work has been published widely within Aotearoa, as well as Australia and the UK, and can be found in places like Starling, Rat World, Minarets, Takahē, and The Spinoff. In 2023 she was shortlisted for the Ginkgo Prize Best Landscape Poem award, and between 2023 and 2024 she was the guest-editor of Minarets (Compound Press). She has appeared at the Verb Wellington Writers’ Festival, Late Night Poetry Hour (Ōtautahi), the Yellow Lamp Poetry Series (Tāmaki Makaurau), and Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery (Pōneke), but is much more comfortable at home by herself with a cup of tea and a book than she is on a stage.
While Niamh’s published works are primarily poetry and non-fiction, prose fiction is her first real love. With the generous support of this mentorship Niamh hopes to complete a children’s fantasy-fiction novel, with a view towards publication hopefully in the near-future
Chris Maoate
Chris is of Rarotongan and Pakeha ancestry. He never intended on becoming a poet. Writing was therapy. His first book ‘The Poison Prison- inside the mind of a Paranoid Schizophrenic’ took twenty five years to complete. Chris helps people to reduce their compulsive checking through memory systems. As a hobby Chris bends spoons and is a NZ Warriors fan. He is a member of the Wellington Amigos writing group. In the future, Chris would love to create original short movies about mental illness. He is extremely grateful for being accepted into the mentorship programme.
Michelle Mearns
Michelle writes creative non-fiction essays. For the past three decades, in her work as a career analyst and coach, she has focussed on helping other people discover their authentic pathway. Now she uses the personal essay as a means of examining her own lived experiences — in a body, a place and an era. She mines her history, attitudes and assumptions to explore identity, voice, spirituality and interconnectedness. She reflects on how the past persists in the present — carried down through family lines, behind glass in museums, through bodies, through soil, through stories, and through silences.
Grateful for the opportunity of this mentorship Michelle is focussed on completing her essay collection which was initiated through her Master of Creative Writing — completed in 2023.
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 is drawn to genre-blending settings and larger-than-life characters. This year he is working on a novel about an occult secret society attempting to perform exorcisms on two young Wellingtonians without them noticing.
Felicity Monk
Felicity Monk is a journalist and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau.
She holds degrees from the University of Waikato (BSocSc), Auckland University of Technology (Grad Dip in Journalism) and last year completed the Master of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland.
Felicity has worked as a journalist and copywriter for more than 20 years. She also co-produced an award-winning short documentary, Roger the Real Life Superhero, while living in London.
Felicity is a proud mum to two rascals who are always trying to weasel their way into her stories. She loves anything to do with the ocean and is pursuing an ambition to be a perfectly adequate, middle-aged surfer.
She’s immensely grateful for this mentorship and will work towards completing her novel, Bystander, which she began during her MCW year.
Melanie Newfield
Melanie’s passion for the natural world led to a career in conservation and biosecurity. Her work has taken her to many fascinating islands, from Rangitoto in the Hauraki Gulf, to Rasgetheemu in the Maldives and Ross Island in Antarctica. She now works as a freelance science communicator, writer and researcher, based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She wouldn’t say no to the chance to visit more islands.
During seven years as a foster parent, she developed the habit of getting up early to write, something she still does every day. Her essay about fostering was included in Otherhood: essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent (Massey University Press, 2024) and she has also had several articles published in North and South. She writes weekly articles on her Substack, The Turnstone, where she explains the science behind important issues for a non-scientific audience. She loves books, botany, bright colours and being in nature.
Melanie is honoured and excited to be part of the NZSA mentorship programme as she revises her first novel, a historical mystery.
Jessica Thornley
Jessica Thornley is a writer and creative consultant living in Whāingaroa with her daughters, Billie and Juno, and a cat called Visitor.
Jess has lived and worked in the UK and Africa in a variety of creative roles. In 2011, she moved to Rwanda with international NGO Girl Effect where she led the creation of Ni Nyampinga, a nationwide youth media brand designed to inspire and enable a generation of Rwandese girls to realise their potential.
In 2023 after some years out of the workforce to care for her young children she decided to indulge her love of words and enrolled in a Master of Professional Writing at Waikato University, completing a creative writing thesis under the magical supervision and guidance of writers, Dr Tracey Slaughter and Catherine Chidgey.
She is thrilled and grateful for the opportunity to hone her MA thesis, a collection of autofiction called “Things Inside Things” that explores single motherhood and related ideas, as part of the NZSA mentorship programme.
Stephen Williams
Stephen Williams is a novelist and sculptor who lives in Wellington with his wife and daughter. Born in Uganda, he moved to England at the age of five. In 1989, after teaching for two years in Papua New Guinea with Voluntary Service Overseas, he emigrated to New Zealand. He holds a Master’s in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing from Cardiff University. His work is driven by a passion for writing fiction that addresses social injustice and has an international flavour. He has been involved in science education for most of his career and has travelled and worked in Southern Africa, Norway, and Southeast Asia. Always striving for authenticity, he draws on his own experiences and carries out extensive research, often incorporating real characters and events. He has written two novels and is working on a third.
Stephen will be working on a novel about a teacher in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea who becomes increasingly concerned about the disappearance of his predecessor. The story immerses readers in a unique landscape and culture that few have experienced. He is excited about developing this project to a publishable standard and is immensely grateful for the opportunity to receive a mentorship from the NZSA.