NZSA Mentor Programme recipients of 2023

 

Paddy Boylan

Paddy Boylan is fascinated by humankind – where it’s going, where it’s been, and what we can say about the human condition. He loves social satire and both science, and historical, fiction; some of his favourite authors are Vonnegut, Asimov and Mantel. He hopes to create works that spark reflection of what is, and what’s possible, like his favourite works have done for him. For his 2023 mentorship, he’s developing a novel about a man terrified of social collapse, who begins to turn his home into a fortress.

 

 

 

 

Cheryl Evans

Cheryl Evans brought her family from the UK to live in New Zealand in 2004.  She is a Registered Nurse and now-a-days, specialises in care of the elderly and, more specifically, dementia/Alzheimer’s care.   Cheryl is a newly emerging author whose focus is on children’s literature, ages nine to 12.  She owns a small, rare breeds farm and has a love of classic cars.  She has owned her ‘dream car’, a 1959 Austin Healey MK1 Sprite, since 2012.  Cheryl also loves to scuba dive when the opportunity arises.   Cheryl is currently taking a diploma in writing Children’s literature.  She loves to draw from her own passions when writing and has a dream to combine her knowledge of dementia with her writing abilities.  She has a strong desire to write in a humorous but educating way about dementia.  To try and ease the fear and confusion this disease can instil in our younger generation.  Cheryl is thrilled and extremely gratified by the opportunity to have a mentor.

 

Hannah Field

Hannah Field is a writer and academic from Ōtautahi. She lives and works in the UK but was based in Aotearoa for eighteen months during the pandemic. By night, she taught nineteenth-century literature online at the University of Sussex. By day, she wrote the first draft of her mentorship project: a blackly comic novel set in Victorian England. Her short fiction is recently published in Headland and on Newsroom as the weekly story, and she is a (long) past winner of Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha / the University of Canterbury’s Macmillan Brown Prize for Writers. She is extremely grateful to have the chance to be mentored this year.

 

 

 

 

Rachael Gordon

When it comes to describing herself as a writer, Rachael would definitely use “aspiring”— since studying creative writing at uni, she’s kept her beloved hobby largely to herself as she’s pursued a PR career overseas, in travel and kids’ TV. Now back in her hometown of Taihape, she’s building up the courage to unleash some of her prose on the world — beginning with a novel on madness, misplaced love and musical theatre. She’ll know she’s made it if the words “Dark. Riveting. Occasionally funny.” appear in a review…

 

 

 

 

Joseph Janiszewski

Joseph Janiszewski works as a deputy principal at an area school in North Auckland. He lives by the beach with his wife and three children. Much of his writing draws from the experiences of travel, an interest in history and the stories of his refugee grandparents. He has begun to gain success with short story writing competitions, most recently winning third place in the Graeme Lay Competition with his story, Sauerkraut Soup. When he’s not working, writing or wrangling toddlers, Joseph enjoys kayaking, fishing, tramping and playing squash. Joseph is very excited to be part of the NZSA mentorship programme.

 

 

 

 

Merryn Jones

Merryn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa, Ngati Rakaipaaka, Ngati Pākeha) was raised both in Auckland and on the Aotea Harbour, but her tīpuna are from Hawke’s Bay where she has lived for the past 25 years.

In 2020 she completed a short story course by distance with Professor Damien Wilkins of Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters, and in 2021, she completed a one-year Diploma in Writing Stories for Children (with excellence) through the NZ Institute of Business Studies.

The Māori Literature Trust 2021 Pikihuia Awards saw Merryn win the First Time Writer in English category for her short story ‘Food Porn for the Incapacitated’, which was published in Huia Publishing’s Anthology 14 in September 2021.

Merryn was stoked to receive a one month Robert Lord Writers Cottage residency in Dunedin in January 2023. The residency enabled her to finalise and submit a children’s picture book manuscript, while also working on her first historical fiction novel. The NZSA mentorship is a wonderful opportunity to progress this novel.

 

Sara Litchfield

Sara Litchfield is a writer based in Te Anau, Southland. A member of the Queenstown Creative Writing Group and the Fiordland Arts Society, Sara holds a Master of Arts in Theology and a Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She was longlisted in the 2022 National Flash Fiction Day competition and is shortlisted for this year’s Oxford Flash Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Flash Frontier, 1964 Magazine, poetry journal Free The Verse and will be included in an Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology. She is presently concentrating on a work of literary fantasy set in New Zealand. Sara is overjoyed to receive the mentorship and excited to take her novel to the next level. She can be found on Instagram and at www.saralitchfield.com, but she is happiest out in the wild, exploring the forests, lakes, mountains and coastlines that make Aotearoa so special.

 

 

 

Joanne Luke

Joanne Luke is a mother of three grown children and grandmother to many grandchildren. She has strong ties to Te Whanau A Apanui, on the east coast of the North Island, but lives in small town Huntly and writes children’s stories in her spare time. Recently completing a course with New Zealand Institute of Business Studies in Writing Stories for Children she was inspired to give it a go and has pushed her writing out into the wide world by joining NZSA’s mentoring program. A new voice in the literary world with a totally new perspective on what children could be reading.

 

 

 

 

Lucy O’Connor

Lucy O’Connor (she/her) is an emerging voice fascinated with the interplay between modern technology and contemporary relationships. Her writing often examines the tension between the two and how it can be exacerbated by misogyny, hierarchies of power, and parasocial dynamics.

She is currently focused on short story writing and was recently published in Mayhem Literary Journal (issue 10, 2022). Lucy’s next goal is to collate and publish a collection of short stories that explore the above themes in ambitious and surprising ways. She is excited and grateful to be progressing this mahi across 2023 with the support of an accomplished mentor.

Lucy has a degree in psychology and was the host and producer of ‘Selfie Reflective’, an interview-based podcast about how social media influences us. She currently works as a communications and strategy consultant in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and serves on the board of the Wellington Women’s Health Collective.

 

Chris Reed

Chris Reed (Ngāti Konohi) is a high school teacher in Auckland as well as an award-winning musician and writer. His work focuses mainly on identity, connections with others, and parenthood. Prior to this honour, Chris has been the recipient of awards and accolades in short story writing and poetry. This project will be working on his first novel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kathryn Saunders

Kathryn lives on a family farm in the Manawatu and teaches part time at the best little country school in the world. She completed her postgraduate study in special education and has always been interested in supporting children who have difficulty in learning to read and write. Initially wanting to write for children, she has fallen into poetry as well, through documenting her experiences as a mother of severely premature twins. She is the administrator of a small social media following for parents with children in hospital where she uploads snippets of her work. She has had a poem published in the 2021 Landfall anthology, and was shortlisted in 2021 for the Storylines Joy Cowley award for a picture book text. She is grateful for the chance to further her craft and industry knowledge through this mentoring opportunity.

 

 

 

Frances Turner

Frances is 50+ year-old emerging writer, and the proud mother of my two beautiful grown daughters. Born in the USA, of both Native American and European descent, she’s travelled extensively and her journeys have not only shaped her life, but inform her writing. She moved to Aotearoa in 1993, and calls Tamaki Makaurau her home.

An avid reader of fiction and non-fiction, she’s always loved writing. She took a creative writing course back in 1993, but until 2019, her writing was mostly in technical writing, strategic plans, board papers, grant applications, annual reports, speeches, diaries, and travel journals. Her 30+ year career involved both the business and creative sectors in leadership and governance.

In 2019, she made creative writing a priority. In 2020, after the pandemic scuppered her world-travel plans, she began entering writing competitions locally and internationally. Since then, she’s been a member of an international online writing community and has written creative fiction and non-fiction, in genres and forms she’d never have considered trying—including short screenplays. She’s especially loved the chance to write from surprising (e.g., non-human) points of view.

Her short story “The Lightkeeper’s Daughter” won the Judges’ Choice Award for the 2021 Writers’ Workout Writer’s Games and is in the published anthology, 72 Hours of Insanity, Vol 10. Her short flash, “A Chance Encounter at The Best Exotic Fruit Market in Jaipur” is in the UK anthology Glittery Literary of June 2021 and two flash pieces—“Intergalactic Mission of Mercy” and “Controlling the Narrative”—appear in the online magazine Suddenly and Without Warning.

Her short story “b r o k e n” was long-listed with Honours in the 2020 NZ Writer’s College short story competition, and “I Have a Name” was long-listed in the UK’s Dorothy Dunnett Historical Writers Association Awards in 2022.

Over recent years, she’s felt the powerful pull of her ancestors from the Menominee Indian Tribe in Wisconsin. In 2022, she completed the Memoir Ink online course to help her shape and advance the story she’s writing about growing up feeling disconnected from, but now reconnecting to, her tribe and her family’s history. She is extremely grateful (and just a little nervous) to receive the 2023 Mentorship to help advance her memoir and take her writing to the next level.

 

Eileen Woodhead

Eileen has been described as warm and fun. Her long working career has been spent, predominantly in the Kindergarten movement.  She completed a Masters’ thesis, Poetry in Motion, with distinction, through Otago university in 2016.  A passion for reading and dabbling in poetry has always been part of her life. In the past two years she has launched into writing novels. Belonging to NZSA has encouraged and supported her as an emerging author. Her current project is a love story set in Aotearoa, New Zealand in 1957. She is appreciative of the growth this NZSA mentorship will give her and is excited by the possibilities.