Your favourite authors
Authors under the spotlight
We’ve put two of your favourite authors under the spotlight to tell us more about their work. You can click their names to read more information in their Book Council Writer Files.
Bill O'Brien
writer, profile published in BRAT, Summer 2000
Apart from a select few, writing is not the most rewarding career in a monetary sense. However the independence and satisfaction of being the author of your own destiny is, for me, immeasurable. In the striving for accuracy and authenticity I devote a lot of time to research, but the personal benefits are great. Whether it is in studying why our bodies change shape in space, how ship-wrecked sailors survived on a sub-antarctic island, or how the ancient Egyptians lived, the increase in knowledge is refreshing. Being able to pass on this knowledge to children in an entertaining way is, as a job, all I wish it to be.
Lyn Kriegler
writer/illustrator, featured in The School Library, Issue 2, 2009
My parents in America read to me every night from as early as I can remember. I had a teddy bear that I used to whisper the stories to after lights out; and I pretended my bed was a big car that I could drive up into the night sky, roaming with Teddy. I liked making puppet theatres out of shoe boxes and put on shows using soft toys and making funny voices. I began making ‘accordion’ books when I was eight, by folding long strips of paper, drawing on each page and adding what words I could spell.
From an early age I told everyone my goal was to be an artist and a writer. I drew on everything: walls, mirrors, and my little sister’s arms. I taught myself how to use pastels, oils, watercolours, charcoal and acrylic. I made paints from ground-up chalk and mud. By the age of 10, my bedroom was my studio with a hand-painted sign, ‘Do not disturb: writer/artist at work’, on the door.
I joined Writers in Schools in 1990. I love sharing my skills with children, storytelling with my puppets, and hearing what children have to say about their own story ideas, poems, drawings, and dreams.
Learn more about your favourite authors
Click on a letter below or use the box to search for your favourite New Zealand children’s writers, then click on a name for more information about the author’s life and work.
Can’t find the author you’re looking for? Try searching from our Writers Files home page.
