HBRW 2024 - Time Will Tell

Two Maori writers coming at the same subject from different points in time: one from a vividly recreated past, one from an unsettlingly imagined future. Join Dr Monty Soutar (ONZM, Ngati Porou, Ngati Awa, Nga Tai ki lamaki, Ngati Kahungunu) and Tihema Baker (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Atiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngati Toa Rangatira) in conversation with bestselling author Stacy Gregg (Ngati Mahuta, Ngati Pukeko, Ngati Maru) about their much-lauded novels Kawai: Tree of Nourishment and Turncoat.

Dr Monty Soutar:

Dr Monty Soutar ONZM has worked widely with iwi and Māori communities, in particular while writing Nga Tama Toa, which told the story of C Company of 28 (Māori) Battalion in the Second World War. He has been a teacher, soldier, university lecturer, iwi chief executive, civil servant and has held a number of appointments on national advisory boards, including the Archives NZ Council, the Guardians of the Alexander Turnbull Library, the First World War Centenary Panel, and the Waitangi Tribunal. From 2016 to 2020, as a senior historian with Manatu Taonga (the Ministry for Culture and Heritage), he led a digital project on Treaty of Waitangi settlements. His latest publication, Kāwai: For Such a Time as This, is part of a series which focuses on the impact of colonisation on Māori. This historical novel trilogy, inspired by true events, narrates the experiences of eight generations of one family, vividly describing both pre-colonial Māori society and the colonial experience from a Māori perspective.

Tīhema Baker:

Tīhema Baker (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira) is a writer and Tiriti o Waitangi-based policy advisor from Ōtaki. His writing often deconstructs 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 sci-fi novel Turncoat, which parodies the experiences of Māori public servants working in central government. His essay "New Zealander of the Year", which placed second in the Landfall Essay Competition 2023, explores the deep whakamā felt by Māori learning te reo Māori, and the ignorance of Pākehā learners to it. He is also the author of young adult series The Watchers Trilogy, and various short stories and essays.

Chair: Stacy Gregg

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!)

Don't miss Stacy in her session 'The Outsiders' with Jane Arthur on Sun 20 Oct 12pm.

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