Masthead

ANDREW PAUL WOOD

Andrew Paul Wood is a Timaru-based independent cultural historian and commentator, art writer, book reviewer, essayist, translator and poet. He writes for a number of prominent publications in Aotearoa and Australia. He was the co-editor and translator with Friedrich Voit of the collection Karl Wolfskehl: Drei Welten, Three Worlds (Cold Hub Press, 2016), Dunediniad: A Psychogeographical Ode (Kilmog Press, 2018) and The Sonnets of Walter Benjamin (Kilmog Press 2020). His latest book is Shadow Worlds: A History of the Occult and Esoteric in New Zealand (Massey University Press, 2023).

ZOË MEAGER

Zoë Meager’s short fiction has been commended at home and abroad, including winning the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize (Pacific Region). Her work has appeared widely, including in Granta, Landfall, and Overland, among many others. She was a 2024 Sargeson Fellow and won the Bristol Short Story Prize 2025. She does takahē’s marketing and is Chair.

ERIK KENNEDY

Erik Kennedy is the author of Another Beautiful Day Indoors (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2022) and There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (Victoria University Press, 2018), which was shortlisted for best book of poems at the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. He co-edited No Other Place to Stand (Auckland University Press, 2022), a book of climate change poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific. His poems, stories, and criticism have been published in places like berlin lit, FENCE, Landfall, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, the TLS, and Western Humanities Review. He lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

ASH DAVIDA JANE

Ash Davida Jane is a poet, editor, reviewer, and publisher from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. They are the author of two collections of poetry, most recently How to Live With Mammals (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2021), which won second place in the Laurel Prize. Their poems and reviews have been published widely in Aotearoa and overseas. Jane is a publisher at Tender Press. 

ANGELIQUE KASMARA

Angelique Kasmara’s debut novel Isobar Precinct (2021, The Cuba Press) won the Wallace Foundation Prize, was shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh and NZ Booklovers Awards, and has recently been published as an audiobook by Bolinda. She reviews books for the Aotearoa Review of Books, NZ Listener, and Kete. She is a features writer for Family Care magazine, and her fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in the NZ Listener, Newsroom, Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand, A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices, and Planeta Distante Aotearoa: ecos y voces de la larga nube blanca. She completed her Master of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland.

PHILIPPA TUCKER

Philippa Tucker is a Wairarapa-based writer and editor. She is the deputy editor of Shepherdess magazine and one of the organisers of Wairarapa Word—a monthly programme of free literary events for the community. Her writing has been published in Turbine | Kapohau, Blackmail Press, takahē, Flash Frontier, Mote and Rawhead, and n

SAM DOLLIMORE

Sam Dollimore is a visual artist based in Porirua, and has a Master of Fine Arts from Whitecliffe College. Her art practice centres around themes of existentialism, surrealism and corporeality. She has a lifelong love of all things literary and is very happy to be supporting our amazing literary community in Aotearoa by being part of the takahē team. You can find her work by searching online (but maybe don’t do it while you’re in the office).

MELANIE KWANG

Melanie Kwang is a first-generation Taishanese-New Zealand writer from Christchurch. She studied English and Screen Production at the University of Auckland, and completed the Master of Creative Writing there in 2018. Her work has been published in various magazines and anthologies, and performed as play readings with local theatre companies.

RICHARD PAMATATAU

Richard Pamatatau is a poet and writer of creative non-fiction that tangles with notions of place, space and identity. He is particularly interested on how place, space and identity play into and support notions of class, particularly for people of Pacific and European or other ethnicities and how they navigate those matters. His Master of Creative Writing sequence was awarded first class honours and its title ‘Wayfinding’ spoke to issues of navigation. His research is engaging with how poets play with space inside their work. Outside of poetry and as a former journalist, Richard is a regular contributor to media on political matters and both the local and national level. He also works in the intercultural and international communication space.

MAURICE LYE

Maurice Lye is a freelance photographer and graphics designer with numerous exhibitions to his name, and is responsible for the layout of artwork in the magazine.