University of Canterbury

Margaret Mahy ONZ is a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong... supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. She has written more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic. For her contributions to children's literature she has been made a member of the Order of New Zealand.
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Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in... Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III. He has also had a number of high-profile roles including the lead in Reilly, Ace of Spies, the adult Damien in Omen III: The Final Conflict, Merlin in the miniseries Merlin, Captain Vasily Borodin in The Hunt for Red October, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, and Alistair Stewart in The Piano. In 2007 he played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in Showtime's The Tudors, and in 2012 began a starring role on the FOX drama Alcatraz. Neill was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the second son of Dermot Neill, a Harrow- and Sandhurst-educated army officer and third-generation New Zealander, and his English wife Priscilla . At the time of Neill's birth, his father was stationed in Northern Ireland, serving with the Irish Guards. The Neills owned Neill and Co., the largest liquor retailers in New Zealand. In 1954, Neill returned with his family to New Zealand, where he attended the Anglican boys' boarding school Christ's College in Christchurch.
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Vincent Ward, ONZM is a film director and screenwriter. Vincent Ward was awarded an Order of New Zealand Merit in 2007 for his contribution to film... making. He was born in Greytown, New Zealand. He was educated at St Patrick's College, Silverstream and trained as an artist at the University of Canterbury. Ward began writing and directing films at 18. In 1978-81, he made the documentary In Spring One Plants Alone, which won the 1982 Grand Prix at Cinema du Reel , and a Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival. In Spring One Plants Alone provides the starting-point for his later feature Rain of the Children in 2008. His debut feature was Vigil . Ward’s films have earned critical acclaim and festival attention whilst achieving a wide audience. Vigil, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey and Map of the Human Heart were the first films by a New Zealander to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between them they garnered close to 30 national and international awards .
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Russell Kirkpatrick is a geography lecturer and a novelist. He holds a PhD in geography from the University of Canterbury, and currently lectures at... the University of Waikato in Hamilton. He has worked on six atlas projects and is currently working on his seventh . He has written two well received fantasy trilogies, Fire of Heaven and Husk. Kirkpatrick has won two Sir Julius Vogel Awards for Best Novel - Adult, for Path of Revenge in 2008, and Dark Heart in 2009.
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