Steph Matuku (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama, Te Atiawa) is a freelance writer from Taranaki. She enjoys writing stories for young people, and her work has appeared on the page, stage and screen. Her first two novels, Flight of the Fantail and Whetū Toa and the Magician were Storylines Notable Books. Whetū Toa and the Magician was a finalist at the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. In 2021, she was awarded the established Māori writer residency at the Michael King Centre where she worked on a novel about post-apocalyptic climate change.
Zak Ātea Komene is an Illustrator and visual artist living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, Aotearoa. Her work includes editorial illustration, children’s book illustration, artist book design and fine art practises created through digital and traditional painting and drawing mediums. Through her work she explores the intangibles of our world, and the complexities of self within both a worldly and Te Ao Māori lens with a focus on colour, texture and multimedia practises.