Nga Taniwha i te Whanga-nui-a-tara

Moira Wairama is a published poet, playwright, storyteller, performer and kura kaupapa teacher, and an award-winning children’s book author. She writes in both English and Maori, and bilingual retellings of Maori legends are one of her specialties. Her story The Taniwha of Wellington Harbour/Nga Taniwha i te Whanga-nui-a-tara with illustrations by Bruce Potter (Puffin 2011) won a Storylines Notable Non-fiction award and the LIANZA Te Kura Pounamu Award in 2012. Moira lives in Wellington with her partner, performer Tony Hopkins, and they are co-founders of Soul Food Tellers, performing stories for audiences of all ages.

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.