Te Awa o Kupu

Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa) commutes between homes in Hong Kong, Philippines, and Aotearoa New Zealand. He is widely published across several genres in both his main languages, te reo Maori and English, and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, Mandarin, Romanian and Spanish. He earned a PhD from the University of Auckland with a thesis about Colin Wilson and writes extensively about Wilson. Rapatahana is a critic of the agencies of English language proliferation and the consequent decimation of indigenous tongues, inaugurating and co-editing English language as Hydra and Why English? Confronting the Hydra. He is also a poet, with nine collections published in Hong Kong SAR; Macau; Philippines; USA; England; France, India, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Atonement (UST Press, Manila) was nominated for a National Book Award in Philippines (2016); he won the inaugural Proverse Poetry Prize the same year; and was included in Best New Zealand Poems (2017). In July 2018, he participated in the Hauterives Literary Festival in France. In September 2019, he participated in the World Poetry Recital Night, in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia. In October 2019, he participated in the Poetry International Festival at The Southbank Centre, London. He also appeared at the Medellin Poetry Festival in Colombia during August 2021. Rapatahana is one of the few World authors who consistently writes in and is published in te reo Maori (the Maori language). It is his mission to continue to do so and to push for a far wider recognition of the need to write and to be published in this tongue.

Kiri Piahana-Wong is a poet, editor and the publisher at Anahera Press. She is of Ngati Ranginui, Chinese and Pakeha ancestry. As a poet, Kiri’s writing has appeared in over forty journals and anthologies, including Essential NZ Poems, Landfall, Tatai Whetū- Seven Maori Women Poets in Translation, Ora Nui, Va- Stories by Women of the Moana and more. She has one full-length collection, Night Swimming (2013), and a second, Give Me An Ordinary Day, is forthcoming. Kiri lives in Whanganui with her family.