Sarah Anderson

Sarah Anderson has been published in a variety of NZ literary journals as well as other less reputable magazines. Some of her work can be found in Landfall, Takahe, Bravado and Viola Beadleton’s Compendium. She has been working on two non-fiction novels over the last year. One is about her alchemical experiments on herself. The other is a sometimes sexually explicit, occult thriller that probably isn’t to everyone’s taste.

Nine Things About Sarah
1. She loves lightning storms.
2. She likes talking to cats, children and household objects.
3. She was in a car crash and a plane crash within a week of each other.
4. She’s given astrology readings to many people, including a fair few at the IRD and the NZ army.
5. Her favourite authors include Sherri S Tepper, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
6. She has a degree in Mathematics.
7. Her childhood dream was to see a volcanic eruption, a tidal wave, a tornado and a fairly large earthquake. She’s still pretty interested in natural disasters.
8. She was arrested by the US department of Homeland Security.
9. She used to paint mostly, but then she got seduced by writing and hasn’t been able to stop.

Janis Freegard

 Janis Freegard has won several prizes for her short stories, including the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award in 2001. Janis also writes poetry and is currently working on her first novel. Her work has appeared in a wide range of magazines, journals and anthologies, such as the Listener (NZ), Landfall (NZ), The North (UK), Dexter Hannon’s Guide to Auto Maintenance (Australia), Poetry New Zealand, JAAM (NZ), and Home: new short short stories by New Zealand writers. Several of her stories have been broadcast on radio.
Links to some of Janis’ writing can be found here:

Fiction

http://www.bnz.co.nz/binaries/2001MainAwardWinningStory.pdf

Poetry

http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/turbine/Turbi05/poetry/freegard1.html

http://nzpoetsonline.homestead.com/JFgard13.html

You can also read one of her stories in Volume One of Viola Beadleton’s Compendium of Seriously Silly and Astoundingly Amazing Stories. To order a copy, see http://www.wellingtonwriters.com/viola/.

Nine Things About Janis:
1. She was born in South Shields in England, which is on the mouth of the River Tyne. This makes her a Geordie, though you wouldn’t know from the way she talks.
2. She went to ten different schools while she was growing up, in four different countries (England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand).
3. When she was ten, her family lived in a caravan park in Perth.
4. She has an Honours degree in Plant Ecology.
5. She saw the Clash when they played at the Logan Campbell Centre in 1982.
6. Her favourite writers include: Jeanette Winterson, Jane Rule, Haruki Murakami, Fay Weldon, Banana Yoshimoto and Jean Watson.
7. She often writes in cafés.
8. She likes spiders (though not to eat).
9. If she was reincarnated as a fictional character, she’d like to be the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, which can disappear but leave behind its smile.

Jennifer Lane

Jennifer Lane had her first taste of literary success at age 11 when she won St Michael Primary School’s year six creative writing competition with her dramatic World War II piece, Dominic finds a way. Twenty-four comparatively unsuccessful years later, she was one of the winners of NZ Book Month’s Six Pack Two competition. Jennifer’s short stories have been published in magazines and journals both here and across the Tasman, including Southerly: Writers and their Journals (Australia), Pulp (NZ), Viola Beadleton’s Compendium (NZ) and most recently, Island (Australia). She is currently working on her first novel.

Nine Things about Jennifer
1. She was born in Australia but has spent a third of her life elsewhere, mainly in New Zealand.
2. She once won a cow judging competition at an agricultural show. She still has no idea how…
3. She lived without TV for eight years (only succumbing after having a baby – a now self-confessed Wiggles addict).
4. Her favourite writers include Tim Winton, Helen Garner, Alice Munro, Annie Proulx, Kate Grenville, Janet Frame, Iain Banks and Douglas Coupland.
5. She once modelled a ‘Snuggle Wrap’ in a mail order catalogue.
6. She got married in both New Zealand and Australia (to the same bloke).
7. She prefers to write in the early hours of the morning (problem is, she also likes to sleep in the early hours of the morning...)
8. She detests spiders (hence her lengthy departure from Australia).
9. She is expecting her second baby at any moment.

Chris Hobley

Chris’ work has been published in the South China Evening Post, the Daily Yomiuri, Takahe and Viola Beadleton's Compendium of Seriously Silly and Astoundingly Amazing Stories. He is currently working on his first novel.

Nine Things About Chris
1. He’s originally from Zimbabwe but that’s no excuse.
2. He has two law degrees and a Masters in Communications and as well as working as a lawyer and a consultant – has also worked as a nightclub doorman, a motorcycle rider, a circus hand, a factory worker and a racetrack cashier. None of these has radically improved his character.
3. He has the most gorgeous daughter in the world, and has just had the most gorgeous son with the most gorgeous partner.
4. He has an extra bone in his back, and was recently told by his dentist that he is missing one of his front teeth – a fact that had escaped his attention for more than four decades.
5. His favourite writers are David Mitchell, Haruki Murakami, Len Deighton, James Lee Burke, Carl Hiaasen and Michael Chabon among others.
6. He was once told by a “seer” that he was shot from behind with an arrow in the battle of Hastings.
7. His birthday is on January 1st, a day he shares with J.D. Salinger and J Edgar Hoover.
8. His interests include reading, writing, music, and art, but also guns, knives, woodwork, whipmaking and motorcycles, which he sometimes attempts to pass off as a Renaissance versatility but in truth is a sign of a short attention span.
9. He had a tattoo long before it was fashionable.

Niamh McManus

Niamh McManus has not been published in a variety of magazines or journals, either in New Zealand or anywhere else in the globe. Nor has she won literary awards or any other awards for that matter, although she did win six wine glasses at a school fair in the late ‘80s. Despite her consistent lack of publishing successes of any kind in any form, she holds fast to the delusion that one day she’ll be discovered as a literary giant. To show she’s serious about this, she’ll be uploading chapters from her uncompleted manuscripts to this very website – previously unpublished anywhere!

Nine Things about Niamh (and one thing about NZ)

1. It’s pronounced ‘neev’.
2. She was born and bred in Co Tipperary but buttered in Dublin City (pre-boomtime – the Sultans of Ping FC in Fibber Magees - Where’s Me Jumper?).
3. Her mother had so many children she didn’t know what to do. So she left them to their own devices. Mistake!
4. Niamh had creative dreams and aspirations that were on their way to being realised until she got mixed up in IT.
5. Like millions before her, she left the soft Irish shores in search of fortune and sobriety in another country; she chose New Zealand and has been sober since.
6. She’s just become a mother, which could mean that literary success may be delayed for another eighteen years.
7. She can’t make up her mind if there is more general happiness in having cash in one’s pocket and a bag of unfulfilled creative goals or to attempt to achieve those goals and be poor.
8. She might give chick lit a shot if the action thrillers don’t work out.
9. She’s a worrier. Right now she’s worried that, in years to come, her family will make fun of her child’s accent. They’re like that.
10. The climate in New Zealand is not similar to the climate in Australia, although many make this assumption.

Mark Stephenson

At the age of ten, overcoming a fear of deep water, Mark was proud to be awarded the Beginners Swimming Certificate at Newport Town Baths, South Wales. In the literary scene, he has gained no such award. He has published short stories in Takahe, JAAM, Viola Beadleton’s Compendium, Washington Square, and New Idea. Though he still fears being out of his depth, he is writing a novel, anyway. He now swims three times a week.

Nine Things about Mark

1. 1. Mark likes all animals, including humans.
   2. Various species share his home.
   3. He likes to photograph plants, especially when they are wet.
   4. He loves curry, though curry does not always love him.
   5. Favourite authors include: Jonathon Franzen, E.M. Forster, E. Annie Proulx, Zadie Smith, Tim Winton, Jane Austen, Alice Munroe, Thomas Hardy, Salman Rushdie, in no particular order.
   6. Once, after locking himself out of his apartment, he spent a long time on a Parisian rooftop, in his underwear.
   7. They were blue.
   8. He enjoys Mike Leigh movies and ping-ping.
   9. Mark sometimes writes poetry.