Airini Beautrais completed an MA in creative writing at the IIML in 2005. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Secret Heart (VUP 2006) and Western Line (VUP 2011). Secret Heart won the NZSA Jessie Mackay award for best first book of poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

Aleksandra Lane lives in Wellington. Her poetry has been published in online and print journals in NZ and Australia, as well as two poetry collections in Serbia. She completed her MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2010 and was awarded the Biggs Poetry Prize for her portfolio.

Alice Miller studied in Wellington and Iowa, and is spending some of her summer in Antarctica.

Aorewa taught in the English Department at Auckland University for 37 years. She took the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2011, trying to learn how to do what she taught for so long.

Ashleigh Young currently lives in London where she works as an editor and blogs sporadically. She thought about making this a "cute" biographical note but has decided to stick to the cold hard facts.

Bernadette Hall’s ninth book of poetry, The Lustre Jug, was a runner-up in the NZ Post Book Awards 2010. Her current project is writing a collection of short fiction but every now and then she falls back into the poetry trap. This year she has been working in Wellington as a Teaching Fellow at the IIML.

Bernadette writes: "Logarithim. The word comes from foreign territory for me, I have always had trouble with maths. I read it today as referring to a holding pattern, as a shape that is dependable and enduring. In a strange way, this odd little poem seems to arise out of the Canterbury earthquakes. That’s what I intuit. It’s as if everything has had to be rebuilt again, a kind of Garden of Eden replay. And the amazing thing is that a ‘you’ and a ‘me’ are still here. We’ve been given another chance. So above all the poem is one of gratitude."

Originally from Christchurch, Brent Kininmont has lived in Tokyo for more than a decade.

Briony Pentecost has just completed work on her folio for the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML. Toi toi and doctrine come from this folio, centred around the essence and music of every day moments.

Christopher Howe completed an MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2011. London, June 2005 is an extract from his MA portfolio. He lives with his family in Wellington.

Claire Brunette lives in Auckland. Her short stories have been published in Sport, Hue & Cry and the New Zealand speculative fiction anthology A Foreign Country. She is currently writing a horror novel.

My poetry has been published around the traps, in places like Turbine, Trout, Broadsheet, Pasture, Snorkel and Enamel. My collection of short stories, A Man Melting, won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize Best First Book award and I write a fortnightly column for the Dominion Post about my double life as a writer and public servant.

David Beach lives in Wellington. His third sonnet collection, Scenery and Agriculture, is scheduled for publication by VUP early in 2012.

Elena Moretti lives in Wellington, mostly within the walls of Victoria University’s library. She was awarded the R G Frean Prize for Creative Writing and has been published in Takahe.

Elizabeth Russell did the MA programme at the IIML in 2009. She now lives in Hawke’s Bay, freelance writing and working in the arts sector. In the Summer is from a series of Japan poems, which relate to a longer fiction project Elizabeth is working on (slowly).

Faith Oxenbridge has a Masters in Fine Arts (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Canterbury University. She is also a theatre critic for the NZ Listener. Her short fiction has been published in: The NZ Listener, The Six Pack Two, The Christchurch Press and Best NZ Fiction 5 (ed Owen Marshall)

Frankie McMillan is a short story writer and poet. Her first book, The Bag Lady’s Picnic and other Stories was published by Shoal Bay Press. Her poetry collection, Dressing for the Cannibals, was launched in 2009 as part of the  Christchurch Central Libraries’ 150th anniversary. That year she was also the winner of the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition.

Gemma Bowker-Wright is currently completing the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML. Her portfolio of short stories draws on her background in environmental science and study of New Zealand native birds. The Takahe comes from her portfolio.

Gregory Kan graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA in English and Philosophy. He also attended the Iowa Workshop in Poetry at the International Institute of Modern Letters in early 2010. His writing has appeared in a number of print and online publications including brief, Percutio, otoliths, Blackmail Press and most recently the Auckland-based anthology Live Lines IV.

Hannah Newport-Watson lives in Wellington. She has previously had poems in Landfall and Sport.

Helen blogs at helenheath.com and writes poetry and essays. Her poetry has been published in many journals in New Zealand, Australia and the USA. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2009. Helen’s chap-book of poems called Watching for Smoke was published by Seraph Press in 2009. Her first full length book, Graft, will be published in 2012 by VUP.

‘Making tea in the universe’ is a partially found poem inspired by Bill Bryson’s description of the Big Bang in his Short History of Nearly Everything, (Black Swan, 2004) in which he describes the creation of the universe happening in the time it takes to make a sandwich. This poem won the inaugural ScienceTeller Poetry Award in 2011.

Hera Lindsay Bird has just completed her MA at the IIML, and has previously been published in JAAM, Snorkel and Salient. She is the winner of the 2011 Adam Prize.

Hinemoana Baker (Raukawa, Toa, Āti Awa, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) is a writer, musician and teacher of creative writing. She completed her MA at the Institute of Modern Letters in 2002. She has published two poetry collections, mātuhi | needle (2004) and kōiwi kōiwi | bone bone (2010).

Isobel Cairns is an established philosopher and scholar with a lovely house, three attractive children and four dogs. No, wait. She is a scholarly established philosophy with four attractive houses and three childish dogs. No. Hold on. Isobel Cairns has an honours degree in philosophy and lives next to a park, which often contains children and dogs. The children fall over and sometimes the dogs chase each other.

Kate Camp is the author of four collections of poetry from Victoria University Press, the most recent, The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls, won the poetry award at the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards. She is currently living in Berlin on the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer's Residency.

Wellington writer Kate Simpkins completed the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2011. She is working on her second novel, a humorous look at what it's like being trapped in the bubble of fame.

Ken Heaton has lived and worked mostly in Wellington. He completed the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2011.

Kerrin P Sharpe, based in Christchurch, is a poet and teacher of creative writing. This year she has been published in Snorkel, Blackmail, JAAM, Best NZ Poems 2010 and in Best of the Best NZ Poems (VUP, 2011).

Lawrence Patchett’s creative writing PhD explores frontier settings and themes. Recent work from this project has appeared in The Long and the Short of It, Sport, Booknotes, and Hue & Cry.

Leanne works in the heritage section of Auckland Central Library. She has a Masters of Creative Writing (First Class Honours), and loves flash fiction, opera, oysters and beer.

Louise Wallace's debut collection of poetry, Since June, was published by Victoria University Press in December 2009. She is currently at work on a second collection centred around the loss and preservation of memory, with the assistance of a grant from Creative NZ. Leaving him free and Grindadráp are from a longer series prompted by ideas around how to define ourselves, the need to leave a record, and Wikipedia's proliferation into our 'everyday'. These two poems were inspired by the pages ‘John the Baptist’ and ‘Whaling in the Faroe Islands,’ selected using Wikipedia's 'random article' function.

Lucy Butler recently completed a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne which examines romantic love in contemporary fiction. Leo doesn’t believe is extracted from the creative component of the thesis. Lucy has had work published in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. She lives in Golden Bay and is currently working on a novel.

Lucy Kirton lives in Lower Hutt with her husband and two daughters. She studied at Victoria University and RMIT, worked in printing and design for several years, and now freelances as a copywriter. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the IIML.

Lynley Edmeades has just completed her MA in Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, at Queens University Belfast. She is currently travelling through Russia and Mongolia, en route to New Zealand, where she will be resuming work as a bookseller in Wellington.

Maggie Sturgess was born in Texas, but she has spent the majority of the past fifteen years in New Zealand – long enough to call it home. She currently resides in Wellington.

Micah Timona Ferris completed her MA at the IIML in 2011 and has a BA from University of Canterbury in English and Theatre and Film Studies. In 2010 she won the Margaret Mahy Prize at the Hagley Writers’ Institute and in 2011, the Macmillan Brown Prize for Writers. Her poetry and short fiction has been published in various NZ and international journals and she is also a performance poet. Micah was born in Switzerland and has dual New Zealand Citizenship. She currently resides in Christchurch and is temporarily relocating to the UK in 2012.

Mikaela Nyman is a Wellington based writer born in Finland, intrigued with questions around identity, belonging and why people move across the world to find a place they can call home. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Lumiere Arts Reader, Blackmail Press, JAAM and 4th Floor. In 2011 she is completing her MA in creative writing at the IIML.

Natasha Dennerstein was born in Melbourne into a Russian/Polish Australian family and now lives in Wellington. She has spent many years working as a psychiatric nurse. She is currently writing poetry for her MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.

Rachel Bush is a Nelson poet. Her most recent book of poetry, Nice Pretty Things and others was published by Victoria University Press in November.

Rachel O’Neill is an artist, writer and occasional editor living in Paekakariki on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand. Her story ‘The Orienteer’ was Highly Commended in inaugural The Long and the Short of It competition, run by Unity Books/Sport in 2011. Her recent writing appears in Takahe 72, JAAM 28, Hue and Cry 4, Paper Radio, and Turbine 2010. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2008.

Rachel Sawaya recently completed a Masters in Creative Writing through Victoria University of Wellington. She has been published in Magma magazine and in the 4th Floor Literary Journal. Her blog can be found at http://lastlittlebird.blogspot.com. She is this year's winner of the Biggs Poetry Prize.

Rajorshi Chakraborti is the author of four novels - Or the Day Seizes You, Shadow Play, Balloonists, and Mumbai Rollercoaster - as well as several short stories, essays and reviews. He was born in Calcutta, India in 1977, and grew up there and in Mumbai. He has studied and/or worked in Canada, England and Scotland, and currently lives in Wellington.

Rebecca Styles completed the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2011 where she was writing a novel entitled Fathom. She also writes short stories, one of which was published in The Best New Zealand Fiction: Six (2009).

Of Rarotongan and Kiwi heritage, Rob spent his early years in Niue and his poems reflect these influences as well as an eclectic worldview.

Rosabel Tan completed the MA in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2011, during which time she worked on a collection of short stories exploring ideas of family, trauma and transition.

Timothy Greig Nees is a Wellington architect and writer. His poetry and prose has been published locally by JAAM, Landfall, NZ Poetry, and internationally by Editions Bibliotekos. He is currently completing his MA in Creative Writing at IIML, a novel set in the universities and art world of Lisbon.

Tim’s poems have been published in Agni (USA), Bravado, Landfall, NZ Books, NZ Listener, North and South, Reconfigurations (USA), Sport, Takahe, and Turbine. His first collection, A House on Fire (Steele-Roberts) was published in 2009. His poems have also appeared in the annual series, Best New Zealand Poems (2008 and 2009), and The Best of Best New Zealand Poems (VUP, 2011).

Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle is a writer from Auckland. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Landfall, Poetry NZ, Snorkel, and Colorado Review.