WIS Programme
Feature Title
Journey to Oxford
by John Mulgan
Edited by Peter Whiteford: John Mulgan’s place in New Zealand literature rests on his acclaimed... 
Feature Author
Sandra Arnold is a fiction writer. She was co-founder of the literary magazine Takahe which was first...
Open Book
New Zealand Book Council
Our Staff
Noel Murphy
Chief Executive
Noel has worked in the book trade, in various roles, since 1991. After working in several bookshops in the UK and Ireland he became Promotions Manager for the Waterstone’s chain in 1998. In 2000 he joined Bloomsbury Publishing to help develop their website.
Moving to Faber in 2002 he became Marketing Director in 2003 and part of the management team that returned the firm to profit bringing the coveted accolade of Publisher of the Year 2006 to Faber. He has three children and now lives in Wellington.
Noel's favourite book is The Great Gatsby, which he reads every year and wishes he were American for a month afterwards.
Susanna Andrew
Communications Manager
Susanna Andrew has been in and around the book trade most of her working life; in bookshops, publishing houses and for various literary festivals in New Zealand and overseas.
Like many avid readers before her, Susanna’s reading life began by hearing stories on her mother’s knee. The literary spell was therefore cast at an early age by Eleanor Farjeon, E.B. White and the thrilling mystery of the Lady of Shallot. Susanna’s favourite book is the Milky Way Bar by Bill Manhire.
Sarah Hughes
Education Manager
Sarah Hughes is our Education Manager, but makes occasional forays into Web editing, E-newsletter creating, and events coordination. She grew up in coal-mining towns on the west of both Australia and New Zealand. She has a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and History, which led to work in bookstores and airports. After doing her OE, she joined the Whitireia Publishing course, and began working at the New Zealand Book Council in 2007.
Sarah reads at least a book a week, and depending on her mood reads teen fiction, NZ fiction, science-fiction, and contemporary fiction. Some of her favourite writers are Haruki Marukami, Elizabeth Knox, Cormac McCarthy, Neil Gaiman and David Mitchell (in no particular order).
Emma Gallagher
Education Co-ordinator
Emma has a MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University. Before joining the Book Council in 2009 she worked in admin roles both in Wellington and overseas, her favourite being at the Tate Galleries in London. She has also worked on various theatre productions in Wellington over the past decade.
At the moment Emma’s really enjoying reading Iris Murdoch, Richard Ford and Marilynne Robinson.
Bianca Cornford
Accountant (Part-time)
Prior to joining New Zealand Book Council in 2008, Bianca had over 7 years finance accounting experience in different industries in New Zealand. Bianca also has over 10 years of international business experience working in different countries. She is an energetic and efficient person who excels in communication and problem resolution. With three years’ experience running her own business she has enhanced her skills in business planning, marketing strategies and financial consulting. As a working mother, Bianca enjoys work-life balance. She and her husband share an interest in activities with their 2 year old daughter.
Nadya Kooznetzoff
Consultant
Nadya joined the Book Council in 2008 following an early career in newspaper journalism in New Zealand, a decade in book publishing in London and several years as a communications consultant back in Wellington.
At Pan Macmillan in the UK, she was responsible for marketing the Picador list for many years and Marketing Director for the group for four. This offered her the great pleasure of working on publications ranging from Don De Lillo’s Underworld and Graham Swift’s Last Orders to Bridget Jones’s Diary and the works of Jackie Collins and Wilbur Smith.
Nadya’s reading tastes are just as diverse. She relishes a good piece of crime fiction, but her favourite book would have to be Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey.
OUR BOARD
Peter Biggs
Chair
Elected 2010
Peter Biggs is Managing Director of Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne, winner of the B&T Agency of the Year in 2007 and 2008, Campaign Brief Agency of the Year in 2008 and AdNews Agency of the Year in 2008.
Before taking up his appointment in Melbourne in March 2006, he was Managing Director of Clemenger BBDO in Wellington, New Zealand. During his time at Clemenger BBDO Wellington, the agency was New Zealand Agency of the Year in 2002 and 2004, and he was chosen as Agency Chief Executive of the Year in 2003.
Peter was Chair of the Arts Council of New Zealand (Creative New Zealand) from 1999 to 2006. He was also a member of the Prime Minister’s Growth and Innovation Advisory Board from 2002 to 2006, and was on a number of other Boards, including Wellington’s Westpac Stadium, The Asia: NZ Foundation, the New Zealand Institute, Creative HQ and Ngai Tahu Communications.
He has a first class honours degree in English Literature and Latin from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is a sought-after speaker on branding, marketing, creativity and leadership.
Peter is married with four children and has a farm in the Wairarapa.
Geoff Davenport
Deputy Chair
Elected 2008
Geoff Davenport is a partner in the specialist employment law firm, McBride Davenport James. Since joining the firm, Geoff has acted for a wide range of employers, unions, employees and the Government on various employment related issues. Geoff has also published the leading text on good faith collective bargaining under the Employment Relations Act. He is on the Editorial Board of Mazengarb Employment Law and the Employment Law Bulletin.
Geoff describes his personal interests as family, sports of all kinds, tramping and the outdoors, and travel.
John Allen
Appointed 2010
John Allen is well-known as a passionate champion and supporter of books, writers and reading. He is currently the Chief Executive and Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Prior to that, John was Chief executive of New Zealand Post. He is also co-chair of the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum.
Kevin
Chapman
Appointed 2010
Kevin Chapman is the Managing Director and Publisher at Hachette New Zealand (formerly Hodder Moa Beckett), one of Aotearoa New Zealand's leading publishing houses. He is a Past-President of the Publishers Association of New Zealand and is currently on the PANZ Council. He represents PANZ on the Book Trade Liaison Committee and on the Board of New Zealand Book Month.
Paul Diamond
Appointed 2010
Paul Diamond (Ngati Haua, Te Rarawa, and Ngāpuhi) is a writer, journalist, historian and broadcaster. During his career he has produced radio features on Māori topics for National Radio, and worked as a senior reporter for Māori Television's current affairs show, Te Hēteri. His Radio programmes have won Quantas Media and Media Peace Awards. His books include A Fire in Your Belly, a collection of interviews with Māori leaders, and Makereti: Taking Māori to the World. He was a judge and the Te Reo Maori Advisor for the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Awards and is convener of the judging panel and Te Reo Maori Advisor for this year’s awards.
Lincoln Gould
Elected 2008
Lincoln Gould (MBA, Distinction) is the CEO of Booksellers New Zealand. Immediately prior to taking up his current role he served as Chief Executive of the New Zealand Newspapers Publishers Association and New Zealand Press Association.
Lincoln began his career in journalism, a career which took him to the UK where he worked for newspapers and in industrial public affairs. For 11 years he was responsible for publicity and public affairs at a global engineering construction company. In the mid 80's he returned to New Zealand became General manager of Marketing and joint Chief Executive for The New Zealand Futures & Options Exchange in Auckland. In 1993 he was appointed as CEO of M-co Ltd where he led the development of the New Zealand Wholesale Electricity Market. In 1999 he was appointed head of the Graduate School of Business and Government Management at Victoria University, Wellington where he served until rejoining the newspaper industry in 2001. Lincoln and his wife Gillie live in the Wairarapa where they are surrounded by olive trees and books.
Liz Knowles
Appointed 2011
Liz Knowles brings with her a wealth of knowledge of the library and information sector. She is the Head of Marketing Services at Dunedin Public Libraries and manages a talented small team of specialists. Liz has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, and Diploma in Visual Communication Design, and has been involved in bringing people, places and creative ideas together for over 15 years. Her background includes event management, sponsorship and public relations in the arts and educational sectors.
Owen Marshall
Elected 2005
Owen Marshall has authored a huge range of literature, including writing and editing over 20 books. He has received various awards and fellowships including the Robert Burns Fellowship, and the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship in Menton, France. His novel, Harlequin Rex, won the Montana Book Awards Deutz Medal for fiction and he has also been the recipient of the ONZM for services to literature. The University of Canterbury awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, and in 2005 appointed him an adjunct professor.
Owen is a former member of the Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, and is a past President of Honour of the New Zealand Society of Authors.
Jenny Pattrick
Elected 2006
Jenny Pattrick has long been active in the arts community. She is a best-selling author, and she is also well known as a jeweller. She has been President of the Crafts Council of New Zealand, chaired the Boards of Creative New Zealand, the New Zealand Drama School and the NZ School of Dance, and for the last four International Festivals in Wellington has chaired the Writers and Readers Festival Committee. She has had short stories and two dramatised series broadcast on National Radio, as well as writing the bestselling novels, The Denniston Rose, The Heart of Coal, Landings, Catching the Current and In Touch with Grace. She was awarded the 2009 New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize.
Peter Quin
Chair, Audit committee
Elected 2007
Peter Quin is a lover of books, and reading is an activity that forms a part of his earliest memories. He continues to seek every opportunity to immerse himself in books of all kinds. Quin writes, ‘I recall with some embarrassment now returning home and spending the entire August vacation as a callow University student in the 1950s reading War and Peace – much to my mother’s silent exasperation. What terrible company for my poor mother who then lived alone!’
Peter Quin’s most deeply satisfying years were those spent teaching English to hundreds of secondary students in a variety of colleges in the lower half of the North Island. (Poetry was his favourite genre.) Although he went on to do other things in education and later arts administration, he says, ‘nothing ever quite exceeded the sense of excitement which came from the meeting of minds and hearts and the gaining of new and powerful insights through the medium of the printed word. How true was Milton when he said, 'Books are not absolutely dead things…' Peter considers it a privilege to be able to support the benefits and values intrinsic in great literature through his association with the New Zealand Book Council.
Vlasta Shanahan
Elected 2005
Vlasta Shanahan was born in India where she lived for the first 10 years of her life before immigrating to Wellington, New Zealand with her family in 1959. Vlasta completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree at Victoria University and is married Gregory Shanahan. Together they have four children, and several grandchildren. Her family moved to Auckland in 1988 and she has since immersed herself in the arts and culture of the city.
Vlasta Shanahan has been involved with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra for some 15 years, first through the Orchestra’s Guild, and later on as a Board member for 5 years. She is a Trustee of the Auckland Opera Studio which nurtures emerging Opera singers and she has served for 2 years with Volunteering NZ. Vlasta joined the Board of the New Zealand Book Council in 2005 to help promote its excellent projects in the greater Auckland region, as well as the objective of 'bringing books and people together' through the Council’s impressive educational activities serving schools and communities throughout New Zealand.
Fiona Kidman
President of Honour
Fiona Kidman is a novelist, short story writer and poet. Her novels include A Breed of Women, The Book of Secrets (winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction) and more recently The Captive Wife, which was Readers’ Choice in the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Her memoir, At the end of Darwin Road, was published in 2008 and the second volume, Beside the Dark Pool, will be released at the beginning of June.
Fiona Kidman initiated and edited the first three volumes of The Best New Zealand Fiction (Vintage). Fiona was the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Writers Fellow for 2006, and visited France later that year with 11 New Zealand writers, as part of Les Belles Etrangeres tour. She was the 2008 Creative New Zealand Michael King Fellow. Fiona is a Dame Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) and has an OBE.
