HBRW 2024 - The Outsiders

The pressure to be connected to others, and to our family and culture, is felt from an early age. International bestseller, Stacy Gregg (Ngati Mahuta, Ngati Pukeko, Ngati Maru), returns to her roots with Nine Girls, an adventure for young readers set in the social upheaval of 1970s and '80s New Zealand. Brown Bird is the gentle, warm-hearted debut children's novel of award-winning poet, Jane Arthur, about finding your inner strength. They are in conversation with author, founder of Verb Wellington and Spinoff Books editor, Claire Mabey.

Stacy Gregg:

(Ngāti Mahuta/Ngāti Pukeko/Ngati Maru Hauraki)
Over three million books sold, and the creator of Pony Club Secrets, the series that became Mystic on the CBBC, Stacy is Harpercollins NZ's 3rd best-selling author of all time behind David Walliams and Dr Seuss. Author of 39 books including three series for middle-grade readers and 8 hardback middle-grade standalones including The Princess and the Foal. Undisputed queen of the pony genre, Stacy now makes the ultimate pivot with Nine Girls - a middle-grade novel set in her hometown of Ngāruawāhia. Nine Girls is all the things: it's a coming-of-age story, a pakiwaitara about a hunt for buried tapu treasure, a social comment on the tumult of the 1970s and 80s in the time of Bastion Point and the Springbok tour, and an examination of the downstream effect of colonisation and the tragic events at Rangiaowhia during the Tainui Wars. (Plus it's got a talking eel!)

Jane Arthur:

Jane Arthur is a poet, children's writer and editor. She was born in New Plymouth and lives in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Jane has a Master of Arts (Distinction) in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, a Diploma in Publishing from Whitireia Polytechnic, and a Master of Arts (Honours) in English Literature from the University of Auckland. She won the 2018 Sarah Broom Poetry Prize, judged by US poet Eileen Myles. In 2020, she was awarded an Emerging Writers Residency from the Michael King Writers Centre, and was a "40 Under 40" inspiring alumni of the University of Auckland.

Jane was a founding editor of children's literature website The Sapling, was on the judging panel for the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and was the convenor of the judging panel for the 2020 awards. Jane was on the judging panel of the poetry category for the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Her first poetry collection, Craven, was published in 2019 by Victoria University Press. It was selected as one of the Top 10 Best New Zealand Poetry Collections of 2019 by The Spinoff and was on the longlist for the 2020 Ockham NZ Book Awards, where it won the 2020 Jessie Mackay Prize for Poetry (Best First Book Award). ​A second collection, Calamities!, was published in 2023 by Te Herenga Waka University Press (formerly Victoria University Press) and was longlisted for the 2024 Mary and Peter Biggs Poetry Prize at the Ockham NZ Book Awards.

Jane's debut children's novel, Brown Bird, was published in May 2024 with Puffin/Penguin Random House NZ.

Chair: 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.

Take a look around...

Close