Manukura: The White Kiwi

Joy Cowley is a much-loved, multi-award-winning New Zealand author of more than 600 titles. She is famous in the United States as the author of the Mrs Wishy-Washy series, which has sold over 40 million copies. Three of her novels, The Silent One, Bow Down Shadrach, and Hunter, have won Children's Book of the Year awards in New Zealand; Ticket to the Sky Dance and Starbright and the Dream Eaterwon junior fiction awards two years running. Joy has been awarded the OBE for her services to children's writing.

When not travelling the world, Joy spends her time between Wellington and the Marlborough Sounds.

Bruce Potter is an international-award-winning and prolific illustrator of more than 100 children's books. Perhaps best known for his incredibly detailed and realistic picture-book illustrations, Bruce has worked in a diverse range of styles over the course of his art career, which began as a cartoonist and caricaturist for a number of newspapers around the world. To date Bruce has illustrated the stories of many of New Zealand's finest children's writers, including the bestselling illustrated edition of Witi Ihimaera's Whale Rider. Bruce lives in Alexandra in New Zealand's South Island, where, as well as being an exhibiting fine artist, he is also an expert stage performer, musician and composer, weightlifter, and black belt (2nd Dan) in Shotokan Karate.