Ring Ting Tūī

Elena de Roo is a children’s writer and poet who lives with her family in Tāmaki Makaurau. Sometimes it feels like there is a door to Narnia in her tiny overgrown garden because the back gate leads straight out onto the slowly rewilding slopes of Maungakiekie and fields of Cornwall Park. There is nothing Elena loves better than to go exploring on the maunga, making up a poem or story as she walks.

In 2010 Elena was awarded the Todd New Writer’s Bursary. Since then her work has been published in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and USA. A number of her books have received Storylines Notable Book Awards and she was the Children’s Writer in Residence at Otago University in 2020.

Elena is a former librarian. Deep down, she has never given up believing in magic worlds and the power of words to take you there.

Paul Beavis is an award-winning children’s author and illustrator.

He is the author of three critically acclaimed picture books and has illustrated several stories for other authors, most notably Deano Yipadee's Nee Naw series.

His work has been praised for its ‘emotional and psychological depth but with all the lightness of touch and humour one could hope for’ (Sarah Forster in the The Reader) as well as for its quirky characters, gorgeous use of colour and being just the right level of naughty to delight young audiences.

In 2015 he received the Russell Clark Award for Illustration for Mrs Mo’s Monster, which was described by the UK’s Independent as an ‘explosively illustrated fable…a real find’.

Originally from London, Paul studied at St Martin’s School of Art and worked in a variety of creative roles including children’s animation and web design before going freelance. He moved to New Zealand in 2012.

Nowadays Paul writes and illustrates full time from his home near Wellington, where he lives with his wife and their young son.