Committee

Chairperson – Sherryl Clark

She has published more than 70 books for young readers, including five verse novels. Her verse novel, Mina and the Whole Wide World, won the 2022 Prime Minister’s Award for Children’s Books in Australia. Her other books have won Notables, the NSW Premier’s award and an Honour Book in the CBCA Awards.

After teaching in the Diploma of Professional Writing & Editing at Victoria University TAFE in Melbourne for more than 20 years, Sherryl decided to focus on her writing and her freelance editing business. A Kiwi from the North, she originally went to Australia to work for three months and stayed for 40 years, returning here in 2022 in time for Cyclone Gabriel and three metres of rainfall. But she is finally able to call herself a gardener instead of a plant killer. Her writer’s websites are at www.sherrylclark.com and www.sherrylclarkcrimewriter.com

Vice Chairperson – Deb Jowitt

Deb Jowitt has lived on the Whangarei Heads for the past 22 years. Previously, she and her husband lived off-grid on Great Barrier Island and the Thames Coast, before happily moving with their three children and dog, Tiger, into the fully electrified house they built in Tapu. In 1990, she published These Hills Are Tapu, an environmental history of the Tapu Valley. After a move to Auckland in the late 1990s, she taught midwifery at AUT, which introduced her to academic writing. In 2004 she completed her MSc thesis, and in 2010, her PhD. While working at Auckland City Hospital and Te Tāhū Hauora: Health Quality & Safety Commission, she co-authored medical articles on a wide range of topics.

In 2017, keen to make the switch to fiction, Deb joined Whangārei Library 3.30 Flash. Since then, her micro and flash fiction has been published in several anthologies and online journals, including Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction, and Changing Landscapes: Micro and flash fiction from Northland. Her current project is a novella-in-flash based on family stories.

Lesley Marshall

Lesley Marshall is a freelance editor, who also teaches on the NorthTec Applied Writing diploma, occasionally relief-teaches at a primary school, works as a mentor and assessor for the Society of Authors, and is occasionally hired by publishers as a publishers’ editor. She isn’t a writer, though she used to compile crossword puzzles for magazines, has had a couple of stories on the radio, and has recently had a few articles in the Heritage Rose Journal. She also currently writes an article on PEN issues for each edition of NZSA’s magazine The Author as part of her role of NZ coordinator for PEN.

She has been married to Rex for over forty years, and they have four biological children, and various others that they have helped parent over the years. Some of these are still available for house-painting working bees, which is a huge plus! Lesley has lived in the same house in Maungatapere for the past 40-odd years (some very odd!) and can’t move out because there’s too much accumulated junk/ valuable stuff.  The children are all developing anxiety disorders at the realisation that clearing it all out will be their job after Rex and she cark it.

Secretary/ Newsletter Coordinator – Patricia Fenton

Trish is a late-comer to the world of fiction writing. Following a career in education that included writing curriculum and professional development publications for the International Baccalaureate in Cardiff, Wales, she returned to her home town of Whangārei with the aim of fulfilling her dream of writing a novel.

In 2018, she completed a Diploma in Advanced Applied Writing (NorthTec) gaining the NZSA Northland Excellence Award. Her major project involved writing a coming-of-age saga set in the sixties: Beyond the Rimu Grove, published in 2019.

When the spirit moves her, she occasionally writes articles, some of which have been published in the Northern Advocate. (The Bountiful Life of a Baby Boomer, More to progressing literacy development than phonics.)

Her second novel – War Bride – was published in August 2023. She’s written the sequel – After the War – which was released in February 2025, and she’s now going further back in history to write a junior novel inspired by a postcard sent to her mother during WW1.

Treasurer – Justine Baddeley

After completing a semester on NorthTec’s Diploma of Applied Writing in 2010 Justine sent her picture book assessment to HarperCollins, who published it and released Tea With Miss Tilly illustrated by Phillip Webb in March 2012. On 20^th August 2011 she also had a profile piece on country singer Carleen Still published in The Northern Advocate. Then in 2017 Wendy Pye Publishing released her reader All Dressed Up.

Having completed the NorthTec Level 5, 6 and the advanced Applied Writing Diploma Level 7 at the end of 2012, Justine went on to complete her Creative Writing degree with Massey. She is lucky enough to have returned to where it all began, and is now a tutor at NorthTec on the diplomas she once studied. Justine continues to write a Young Adult fantasy based in Whangārei about shape shifters, angels and creatures of nightmares, and the odd children’s picture book.

Justine lives with her husband, youngest daughter, two cats, and three cockatiels which keep her busy, while still renovating (on a shoestring) twenty years after buying a house advertised as Nightmare on George Street.

Communications – Sue Barker

Sue writes all short form fiction and some poetry, but only since 2018. Before that she had a long career as an educator in schools, museums, zoos, and environmental government departments. Then she joined the Whangārei Library 3.30 Flash writers’ group and won the 2020 Whangārei Library Flash Fiction Competition. Since then, she’s been published in Fast Fibres Poetry 9, 10 & 11. She co-edited and contributed to You Might Want to Read This, an anthology of Whangārei Library 3.30 Flash writers published in 2021 and Changing Landscapes, published in 2023. She was short listed for Micro Madness 2022 and published on-line in Flash Frontier and National Poetry Day Given Words. She was put forward for the 2023 Best Microfiction anthology. In 2024 she was published in the anthology Haiku Downunder and in Te Moana o Reo/Ocean of Languages in 2025.

Committee:

Janine Williams

Janine Williams writes New Zealand historical junior fiction, writing as J L Williams. Her first book Holding The Horse was a Storylines Notable Book in 2022 and was a finalist in the NZ Children’s and Young Persons Awards for Best First Book in 2023. Her second book Like The Wind, was a Storylines Notable Book in 2023. Janine was the recipient of the inaugural Janice Marriott mentoring award with the manuscript Holding The Horse. She describes the mentorship as a life-changing experience for which she will be forever grateful.

She is currently working on the first book in a children’s time travel series set in Russell/Kororareka and a crime novel for adults set in Devonport in 1901. She is obviously a history fan, although she didn’t know that until she started writing.

Janine and her husband live on ten acres in Hukerenui where they grow plums, apples, figs, citrus and other fruit. They have a small flock of sheep, a horse, a few chickens, and a loud bunch of Pilgrim geese.

Her writer’s website is www.jlwilliamsauthor.com

Heather Whelan

Heather has written an art book for teachers, Smart Art, and a picture book, The Crazy Idea.

Current projects include a travel memoir about sailing from England to New Zealand and a junior novel set in the 1800s.