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WIS Programme

Feature Title

Mansfield: The Story-teller

by Kathleen Jones
The first new biography of Mansfield for a quarter of a century gives a vivid portrayal of Mansfield,...

Feature Author

No New Zealand poet so consistently defied expectations as Allen Curnow. Over his long and deeply influential...

New Zealand Book Council

• Our Staff
• Our Board

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
Appointed 2009

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.

Owen Marshall
Deputy Chair
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.




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.




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.




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.




Richard Griffin
Elected 2007

As a long time journalist with extensive experience in news agencies, radio and television, Richard is held in high regard across the political spectrum.

From 1993 to 1998 he served the New Zealand Government as Chief Press Secretary and Senior Media Advisor to Prime Minister Jim Bolger and the New Zealand Cabinet. He was Radio New Zealand’s longest serving political editor and is now a life member of the New Zealand Parliamentary Press Gallery. He continues to contribute as a political commentator and advisor.

Richard has been closely involved in strategic planning for a number of organizations including the New Zealand primary production sectors, New Zealand Tourism, the pharmaceutical and banking industries.




Lincoln Gould
Appointed 2008

Lincoln Gould is the CEO of Booksellers New Zealand. Lincoln is also a Fellow of the Institute of Management (NZIM) and a member of the Institute of Directors (NZI). Prior to taking up his role at Booksellers New Zealand, he served as Chief Executive of the New Zealand Newspapers Publishers Association and New Zealand Press Association.

Lincoln Gould began his career in journalism, a career which took him to the UK where he worked for newspapers and in public affairs and was responsible for marketing at a global engineering construction company. After 14 years overseas, Lincoln returned to New Zealand in the mid 80's and became General manager of Marketing and joint Chief Executive for The New Zealand Futures & Options Exchange in Auckland. Following this he worked as Chief Executive of M-Co Ltd which he led until 1999, after which he was appointed head of the Graduate School of Business and Government Management at Victoria University.




Geoff Davenport
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.




Sandra Noakes
Elected 2008

Sandra Noakes began her career with Pacific Publishers as promotions manager, and has since worked, in one way or another, for most of New Zealand’s publishing companies. She spent 13-odd years with Transworld Publishers organising their publicity requirements and touring writers in New Zealand. When Transworld’s parent company Bertlesmann bought Random House, she moved down the road to co-head their publicity team. At Random House, Sandra had the pleasure of working closely with some of New Zealand’s top novelists and non fiction writers, and continued to work with big-name international writers.

In 2002, Sandra left the corporate world of publishing and publicity, and took on freelance publicity for five action-packed years. During this time, Sandra also took on freelance work in one form or another for a wide range of New Zealand publishing houses, large and small. Today, Sandra is the publicity manager for HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand, a role that sees her cover a large and varied list of international and local writers.

Highlights from her career to date include doing PR for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults.




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.