Mary Varnham (born 1946) is a New Zealand writer and publisher. [1] She was a Wellington City Councillor from 1998 to 2001. [2]
Varnham was raised in Paekakariki until she was 8 years old, when her family moved to Wellington. [3] She attended Paekakariki School, Hataitai School, Wellington East Girls College and Woodford House. She studied a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in English and political science at the University of Otago, graduating in 1969. [4] [5] From 1972 to 1978, she lived in New York City, where she worked as a writer, public relations consultant, and book publicist at Simon & Schuster. [2]
After returning to New Zealand, she worked at National Business Review and Network Communications. In 1983, she joined the New Zealand Labour Party’s parliamentary research unit and in 1984, she became a ministerial press secretary for Ann Hercus in David Lange's Labour Government.
From 1998 to 2001, Varnham was a Wellington City Councillor. [2] In 2001 she stood for Mayor of Wellington, but was unsuccessful, finishing second behind deputy mayor Kerry Prendergast. [6]
In 2003, Varnham established Awa Press, a publishing company focusing on non-fiction works by New Zealand and overseas writers. [2] [7] She edited Peter Adds' book The Transit of Venus, which was shortlisted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in the Reference & Anthology Category in 2008. [8]
Varnham married Paul O'Regan, a solicitor, in 1986. [1]
Donna Lynn Awatere Huata is a former member of the New Zealand Parliament for the ACT New Zealand Party and activist for Māori causes.
The Kāpiti Coast District, is a local government district of the Wellington Region in the lower North Island of New Zealand, 50 km north of Wellington City. The district is named after Kapiti Island, a prominent island 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) offshore.
Havelock North is a town in the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island of New Zealand, situated less than 2 km south-east of the city of Hastings. It was a borough for many years until the 1989 reorganisation of local government saw it merged into the new Hastings District, and it is now administered by the Hastings District Council.
Susan Jane Kedgley is a New Zealand politician, food campaigner and author. Before entering politics Kedgley worked for the United Nations in New York for 8 years and for a decade as a television reporter, director and producer in New Zealand.
Paekākāriki is a town in the Kāpiti Coast District in the south-western North Island, New Zealand, and one of the northernmost towns of the wider Wellington region. It lies 22 km (14 mi) north of Porirua and 45 km (28 mi) northeast of the Wellington CBD. The town's name comes from the Māori language and can mean "parakeet perch". Paekākāriki had a population of 1,665 at the time of the 2013 census, up 66 from the 2006 census.
The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is 682 kilometres (424 mi) long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of 1,067 mm and serves the large cities of Palmerston North and Hamilton.
Jacqueline Cecilia Sturm was a New Zealand poet, short story writer and librarian. She was one of the first Māori women to complete an undergraduate university degree, at Victoria University College, followed by a Masters of Arts degree in philosophy. She was also the first Māori writer to have her work published in an English anthology. Her short stories were published in several collections and student magazines in the 1950s and early 1960s, and in 1983 a women's publishing collective printed a collection of her short stories as The House of the Talking Cat. She continued to write short stories and poetry well into the early 2000s, and is regarded today as a pioneer of New Zealand literature.
Samuel Marsden Collegiate School is a private girls school located in the Wellington suburb of Karori in New Zealand. It has a socio-economic decile of 10 – on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 reflecting the lowest socioeconomic communities – and provides year one to 13 education for girls, with a co-educational pre-school. Its exam results rank consistently in the top schools in New Zealand. Samuel Marsden Collegiate School students complete the New Zealand National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
Metlink's Kapiti Line is the electrified southern portion of the North Island Main Trunk railway between New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, and Waikanae on the Kāpiti Coast, operated by Transdev Wellington on behalf of Greater Wellington Regional Council. Trains run frequently every day, with stops at 16 stations. Until 20 February 2011 it was known as the Paraparaumu Line.
Paekakariki railway station in Paekākāriki on the Kāpiti Coast, New Zealand, is an intermediate station on the Kapiti Line for Metlink's electric multiple unit commuter trains from Wellington. Paekākāriki was the terminal station of the commuter service from 1940 to 1983, when the service was extended to Paraparaumu, and to Waikanae in 2011.
Dame Catherine Winifred Harcourt, known professionally as Kate Harcourt, is a New Zealand actress. Over her long career she has worked in comedy as well as drama in theatre, film, TV and radio.
Sarah Elizabeth Jackson was a New Zealand teacher, industrial school matron and manager, community leader.
Sophia Hinerangi was a New Zealand tourist guide and temperance leader. Of Māori descent, she identified with the Ngāti Ruanui iwi.
Harry Ricketts is a poet, biographer, editor, anthologist, critic, academic, literary scholar and cricket writer. He has written biographies of Rudyard Kipling and of a dozen British First World War poets.
Patricia Jean Rosier was a New Zealand writer, editor and feminist activist. Born and educated in Auckland into a working-class family, after marriage and raising two children she came out as a lesbian in the 1980s and went on to play a leading role in the second wave of New Zealand's Women's Movement, including editing Broadsheet for six years. In her later years she lived with Prue Hyman in Paekākāriki, north of Wellington.
Heather Avis McPherson was a feminist poet, publisher and editor who played a key role in supporting women artists and writers in New Zealand. In 1976, she founded the Spiral Collective group and Spiral, a women's arts and literary journal that later published monographs. Her poetry book A Figurehead: A Face (1982) was the first book of poetry published in New Zealand by an openly lesbian woman. She published three further collections during her lifetime, and an additional two collections were published posthumously by fellow Spiral members.
Anne Else is a New Zealand writer, researcher and editor.
Avenal Beryl Elizabeth McKinnon was a New Zealand art historian and writer. She was the founding director of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkena Whakaata.
Eliza Ann Brown of Invercargill organised and became the first president of the first Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) branch in New Zealand.
Ellen Ballance was a New Zealand suffragist and community leader. She was a vice-president of the Women's Progressive Society, an international suffrage organisation based in London, and the inaugural president of the Wanganui Women's Franchise League in 1893.