Head was born in Papakura, Auckland in 1976. She studied at the University of Canterbury, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts; she then completed a Master of Arts with Distinction in creative writing from Victoria University, Wellington. [3]
Head's short story collection, Tough (VUP, 2014), was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors’ Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction. [3]
The University of Canterbury (UC) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1873 as Canterbury College, the first constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is New Zealand's second-oldest university, after the University of Otago, which was founded four years earlier, in 1869.
Margaret Mahy was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her "lasting contribution to children's literature".
Sir Frederick Miles Warren was a New Zealand architect. He apprenticed under Cecil Wood before studying architecture at the University of Auckland, eventually working at the London County Council where he was exposed to British New Brutalism. Upon returning to Christchurch, and forming the practice Warren and Mahoney, he was instrumental in developing the "Christchurch School" of architecture, an intersection between the truth-to-materials and structural expression that characterised Brutalism, and the low-key, Scandinavian and Japanese commitment to "straightforwardness". He retired from Warren and Mahoney in 1994 but continued to consult as an architect and maintain his historic home and garden at Ohinetahi.
Dame Gaylene Mary Preston is a New Zealand filmmaker with a particular interest in documentary films.
Amy Ella Satterthwaite is a New Zealand former cricketer who played as an all-rounder, batting left-handed and bowling either right-arm medium or off break. She appeared in 145 One Day Internationals and 111 Twenty20 Internationals for New Zealand between 2007 and 2022. She played domestic cricket for Canterbury, Tasmania, Hobart Hurricanes, Melbourne Renegades, Lancashire Thunder, Lancashire and Manchester Originals.
Donna Tusiata Avia is a New Zealand poet and children's author. She has been recognised for her work through receiving a 2020 Queen's Birthday Honour and in 2021 her collection The Savage Coloniser won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Savage Coloniser and her previous work Wild Dogs Under My Skirt have been turned into live stage plays presented in a number of locations.
Barry Mitcalfe was a New Zealand poet, editor, and peace activist.
Dame Vera Doreen Blumhardt was a New Zealand potter, ceramicist and arts educator.
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
Bernadette Hall is a New Zealand playwright and poet.
Fiona Farrell is a New Zealand poet, fiction and non-fiction writer and playwright.
Noeline Brokenshire was a New Zealand sportswoman, who represented her country in field hockey, and as a hurdler at the 1950 British Empire Games. Later she was a gallery owner and noted woodturner, and the founder and publisher of New Zealand's first woodworking magazine, Touch Wood.
Vivienne Christiana Gracia Plumb is New Zealand poet, playwright, fiction writer, and editor.
Ann Brower is an environmental geographer from New Zealand. A survivor of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, she successfully lobbied for a law change to the Building Act, which was passed in 2016 as the Brower Amendment. Brower was promoted to full professor at the University of Canterbury in December 2021. In 2022 she won the Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement.
Marilynn Lois Webb was a New Zealand artist, noted for her contributions to Māori art and her work as an educator. She was best known for her work in printmaking and pastels, and her works are held in art collections in New Zealand, the United States, and Norway. She lectured at the Dunedin School of Art, and was made an emeritus principal lecturer in 2004.
Ria Bancroft was a British-New Zealand artist born in England. She created the Tabernacle Screen Doors for Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Christchurch and her works are held in several New Zealand art galleries.
Rosemary Campbell is a New Zealand artist and teacher.
Albert Alexander Amahou Belz is a New Zealand actor, writer and lecturer.
Margaret Rose Orbell was a New Zealand author, editor and academic. She was an associate professor of Māori at the University of Canterbury from 1976 to 1994. During her career, Orbell wrote several books on Māori literature and culture, edited numerous collections of songs, poetry and stories, and brought Māori works to a wider and international audience. She was an editor of bilingual magazine Te Ao Hou / The New World in the 1960s, and expanded the magazine's literary and historical content. In 2002, she was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori and literature.
Ariana Rahera Tikao is a New Zealand singer, musician and author. Her works explore her identity as a Kāi Tahu woman and her music often utilises taonga pūoro. Notably, she co-composed the first concerto for taonga pūoro in 2015. She has released three solo albums and collaborated with a number of other musicians. She was a recipient of an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2020.