Michael Bennett | |
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Born | Michael Te Arawa Bennett Reefton, New Zealand |
Occupation(s) | Director, writer |
Years active | 1994 – present |
Website |
Michael Te Arawa Bennett is a New Zealand writer, scenarist and director for film and television. [1]
Bennett is the co-creator, writer, show-runner and executive producer of TVNZ 's Vegas .
He is also the author of In Dark Places, a study of the wrongful conviction of Teina Pora for the 1992 murder of Susan Burdett, which won the 2017 Ngaio Marsh crime writing award. [2] His 2022 crime novel, Better the Blood, was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards [3] and for the Best Novel at the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards. [4]
Bennett is Maori and is of Te Arawa descent.
He is a cousin of actor Manu Bennett.
Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.
Dame Fiona Judith Kidman is a New Zealand novelist, poet, scriptwriter and short story writer. She grew up in Northland, and worked as a librarian and a freelance journalist early in her career. She began writing novels in the late 1970s, with her works often featuring young women subverting society's expectations, inspired by her involvement in the women's liberation movement. Her first novel, A Breed of Women (1979), caused controversy for this reason but became a bestseller in New Zealand. Over the course of her career, Kidman has written eleven novels, seven short-story collections, two volumes of her memoirs and six collections of poetry. Her works explore women's lives and issues of social justice, and often feature historical settings.
Paul Cleave is a crime fiction author from New Zealand.
Chad Taylor is a New Zealand writer.
Vanda Symon is a crime writer and radio host from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the Chair of the Otago Southland Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. Three of her novels have been shortlisted for New Zealand's annual Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel.
Neil Claude Cross is a British novelist and scriptwriter, best known as the creator of the drama series Luther and Hard Sun. He is also the showrunner for the TV adaptation of The Mosquito Coast, which began airing in 2021.
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.
Charlotte Grimshaw is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer, columnist and former lawyer. She has written both fiction and non-fiction, often drawing on her legal experience. Her short stories and longer works often have interlinked themes and characters, and feature psychological and family dramas.
Fiona Farrell is a New Zealand poet, fiction and non-fiction writer and playwright.
Lawrence & Gibson is an independent publisher founded in Wellington, New Zealand in 2005. The organisation functions as a non-profit worker collective where profits are split 50/50 between author and publisher.
Brannavan Gnanalingam is a New Zealand author and practicing lawyer with the New Zealand firm Buddle Findlay at its Wellington office.
The Ngaio Marsh Awards, popularly called the Ngaios, are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand to recognise excellence in crime fiction, mystery, and thriller writing. The Awards were established by journalist and legal editor Craig Sisterson in 2010, and are named after Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the four Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The Award is presented at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival in Christchurch, the hometown of Dame Ngaio.
Ben Sanders is a bestselling crime writer from Auckland, New Zealand. His work has received critical acclaim, been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award, and his fourth novel, American Blood, has been optioned for film adaptation by Warner Bros, with four-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper slated to play the lead role.
Whiti Hereaka is a New Zealand playwright, novelist and screenwriter and a barrister and solicitor. She has held a number of writing residencies and appeared at literary festivals in New Zealand and overseas, and several of her books and plays have been shortlisted for or won awards. In 2022 her book Kurangaituku won the prize for fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Bugs won an Honour Award in the 2014 New Zealand Post Awards for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
Michael Stephen Botur is a New Zealand author described as "one of the most original story writers of his generation in New Zealand." As a journalist, he has published longform news articles in VICE World News, NZ Listener, New Zealand Herald, Herald on Sunday, Sunday Star-Times, The Spinoff, Mana and North & South. His short fiction and poetry has been published in most New Zealand literary journals including Landfall, Poetry New Zealand and Newsroom. In 2023 he founded the mentoring service Creative Writing Northland.
Becky Manawatu is a New Zealand writer. In 2020, she won two Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her first novel, Auē and Best Crime Novel at the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards.
Vegas is a New Zealand drama television series which officially premiered on TVNZ 2 on 19 April 2021 at 8:30 pm. The series was released on TVNZ On Demand on the same date at 9:30 pm. Vegas was co-created by Michael Bennett and Harriet Crampton and produced by Greenstone TV, 10,000 Company, and Steambox Film Collective with support from NZ On Air and TVNZ Te Reo Tataki.
Annaleese Jochems is a New Zealand author and bookseller. Her debut novel Baby (2017) won the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing and the Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Kirsten McDougall is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer and creative writing lecturer. She has published three novels, and won the 2021 Sunday Star-Times short story competition.
Fiona Stewart Sussman is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer and doctor. Born in Johannesburg, she moved to New Zealand in 1989 where she completed her medical degree and went on to work as a general practitioner until becoming a full time writer in 2003. She has published four novels since 2014, winning a number of awards for her writing. She has also won awards for her short stories, including the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award in 2018.