Stuart is the author of several books including "Birds Of New Zealand - Locality Guide" and "New Zealand Birds – An Identification Guide". He has been involved with the Miranda Naturalists' Trust as well as with the development of the Miranda Shorebird Centre, the Aroha Island Ecological Centre and some bird-watching bures in Fiji. He is a proponent for the development of birdwatching in New Zealand. Arun Books "printing to demand" is his latest venture.
George Watola lives in the UK and works at the Central Science Laboratory in York. His main research interests have been Canada Geese, Mute Swans, Cormorants and birds in orchards.
He is a very keen birder having seen over 400 species in Britain. He has also watched birds in most of Europe, south-east Asia, the Gambia and Canada. He also bands birds, especially at Filey on the Yorkshire coast.
Jenny Sharkey and her husband Glen, pastor a church called "Journey Church" in central Auckland. Her first book "A Glimpse at Eternity" is a lucid and free-flowing account of one person's travesty in the face of anguish.
When Jenny is not working she is feeding people and maintaining a large property.
David Arrowsmith was an English teacher but now teaches history. Writing has always been his passion and his first novel shows he is good at it.
His novel is an insight into a 17 year-old boy’s first relationship at a sensitive age. The central figure is a Methodist boy battling strict parental control – and his love is a Middle-Eastern Catholic girl. It is set in 1970 and took him 5 years to write.
Now that he has done it once he wants to keep writing – “to do it again, better – create conflict, suspense, and learn how to hook readers from chapter to chapter.”
Bev Woolley was brought up in the Maratoto Valley near Paeroa. Her interests are genealogy, natural history and conservation generally with specific interests in birds in particular. She has been associated with Forest and Bird, the Ornithological Society of New Zealand and the Miranda Naturalist Trust and has been on the councils of each.
Michelle Vernal is a freelance writer who has just headed over to the dark side of her thirties. Having moved out to Oxford, North Canterbury, she likes to namedrop that she lives near Jo Seagar’s famous café and that she is a devotee of the slow living movement. When she is not running around after family she enjoys sitting on her bum at the computer. The Brazilian Job is her first novel.
David and Barbara Bexley live in Cinderford, Gloustershire, UK where they follow their main interests of art and crafts. David is an accomplished portrait artist. Their lives though have been tied up with motor cycles, both selling them since 1962, and racing them over many years.
In recent years they have toured on them in many countries. This interest in motor cycles has encouraged David to write a book about their history. This is an easy read full of drama and wit. It has been published in New Zealand mainly because that is where they now spend about 12 weeks of each year.
Mike and Pat Fuller live in Rustington, West Sussex, UK where they have retired. Mike's life has been mainly associated with aeronautical engineering and hovercrafts and for some years he lived in New Zealand. His book, written partly for his family, is a historical account of life in the UK after the Second World War and in the growth of the airline industry. It records in detail life down to social habits and mannerisms of the time. It is an easy read full of how we were.
Helen Chambers is 11 years old (2010). Her book was written for her friends and family mainly as a Christmas present for them and was so enjoyed by her cousins that further copies were printed. It is a lively book suitable for children up to the ages of 12. It is her first book.
This is her first attempt at writing. She
was inspired by her family’s history.
Her father was a New Zealander, her
mother an Australian.
In 1984 after a teaching
exchange in British Columbia she and the family lived in a
Christian Community for seven wonderful years, which was
followed by three years training for the ministry in the Anglican
Church. She became a vocational deacon in 2001, and in 2004
put a full stop on her education career by completing a teaching
degree. In 2007 she was ordained as a priest.
Her book, "The Walnut Legacy" took her 5 years to write.
