Whiti Hereaka

Whiti Hereaka (born 1978) is a New Zealand playwright, novelist and screenwriter and a barrister and solicitor. She has held a number of writing residencies and appeared at literary festivals in New Zealand and overseas, and several of her books and plays have been shortlisted for or won awards. In 2022 her book Kurangaituku won the prize for fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Bugs won an Honour Award in the 2014 New Zealand Post Awards for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

Whiti Hereaka
Whiti smiles at the camera, a women with curly hair and a striped jacket.
Whiti Hereaka (2021)
Born1978 (age 44–45)
Taupō
OccupationWriter
NationalityNgāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa
CitizenshipNew Zealand

Biography

Whiti Hereaka was born in 1978[1] and grew up in Taupō.[2] Hereaka is of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa and Pākehā descent.[3][4] Her favourite childhood reading included books by Roald Dahl, the Narnia series, Anne of Green Gables, Tanglewood Tales and The Moomins.[2]

She is a barrister and solicitor[1] and holds a Masters in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington.[5][3] In 2022, she was appointed as a permanent, fulltime lecturer in the creative writing programme at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa / Massey University.[6]

Hereaka has written many plays for stage and radio as well as several novels, and has held a number of writing residencies, including writer in residence at Randell Cottage in Wellington in 2007,[7] the Summer residency at the Michael King Writers Centre in 2012,[5] writer in residence at the International Writers Program in Iowa City in 2013[8][9] and the Māori Writer’s Residency at the Michael King Writers Centre in 2017.[10]

She has been invited to appear at several festivals including the Auckland Writers Festival, the Taipei International Book Exhibition in Taiwan and the Singapore Writers Festival (all in 2015)[2][5][11] and the WORD Christchurch Festival in 2018.[12][13]

In 2012 she was selected for Te Papa Tupu, a writers’ programme supported by the Māori Literature Trust, Huia Publishers, Creative New Zealand and Te Puni Kōkiri[5] and she has since been a mentor and judge for the same programme.[2][14]

Her book Legacy from 2018 is a timeslip novel about a Māori teenager who travels back in time to World War I and finds himself serving as his great-great grandfather, Te Ariki, in the Māori Contingent.[15][16][17]

She is a trustee of the Māori Literature Trust,[4][18] and lives in Wellington, New Zealand.[2]

Awards and prizes

The Graphologist’s Apprentice was shortlisted for Best First Book in the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Asia/Pacific region) 2011.[5][3][19]

Whiti Hereaka won the 2012 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.[20][21] Her other playwriting awards include Best Play by a Māori Playwright in the Adam NZ Play Awards for Te Kaupoi (2010) and Rona and Rabbit on the Moon (2011).[22] Her plays have been called "poetic, poignant, and wildly imaginative".[20]

Bugs was a Young Adult Fiction finalist in the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and won an Honour Award.[23] Bugs was also named as a Storylines Notable Book and was a finalist in the 2014 LIANZA Awards.[24]

Legacy won the Young Adult Fiction award in the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.[25] In 2021 she was awarded the NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship.[26]

Hereaka's book Kurangaituku won the NZ$60,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.[27][28] This book is about the Te Awara Māori legend of Hatupatu from the point of view of the bird-women Kurangaituku. The awards convener Rob Kidd said of the book that it was “intense, clever and sexy as hell. It’s also an important novel. A game changer.”[28] In 2023, the book was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award.[29]

Bibliography
A dashingly made up women with short blond curly hair is behind a microphone reading from her book. Her outfit includes feathered wings.
Whiti Hereaka does a reading at the launch of her book Kurangaituku at Meow Bar in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand on 1 December 2021.

Novels

The Graphologist's Apprentice (Huia, 2010)

Bugs (Huia, 2013)

Legacy (Huia, 2018)

Pūrākau (2019) anthology of Māori myths (co-editor with Witi Ihimaera)

Kurangaituku (Huia, 2021)

Plays

Ohrwurm

Fallow (Tawata Productions, 2005)

Collective Agreement (Young and Hungry, 2005)

I Ain't Nothing But/A Glimmer in the Dark She Said (Open Book Productions for STAB 2006)

Te Kaupoi (Bush Collective, 2010)

For Johnny (Young and Hungry, 2011)

Rona and Rabbit on the Moon (Winner, Best New Play by a Māori Playwright, Adam Play Awards 2011)

Raw Men (shortlisted for the Adam New Play award 2012)

Rewena (Centrepoint Theatre, 2013)

References
  1. "Hereaka, Whiti". New Zealand Book Council Te Kaunihera Pukapuka o Aotearoa. January 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  2. "Whiti Hereaka". Annual annual. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  3. "Whiti Hereaka (Scriptwriting 2002)". International Institute of Modern Letters Victoria University of Wellington. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  4. "Authors: Whiti Hereaka". Huia. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  5. "Visiting Author: Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa)". Publishers Association of New Zealand. 20 November 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  6. Massey University, New Zealand. "Whiti Hereaka - Lecturer - Creative Writing - Massey University". www.massey.ac.nz. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
  7. "The Writers". Randell Cottage Writers Trust. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  8. "Whiti Hereaka". International Writing Program The University of Iowa. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  9. "On the Map 2013: Whiti Hereaka (New Zealand)". International Writing Program The University of Iowa. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  10. "Whiti Hereaka: 2017 Māori Writers Residency". Michael King Writers Centre. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  11. "On the road with Eleanor Catton, Witi Ihimaera and Joy Cowley". Stuff. 1 March 2015. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  12. "Go YA – WORD Christchurch Festival 2018". Christchurch City Libraries. 3 September 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  13. "Whiti Hereaka". WORD Christchurch. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  14. Paranihi, Regan (12 June 2018). "Six Māori writers selected for Te Papa Tupu". Māori Television. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  15. Black, Taroi (21 September 2018). "A new Māori novel about World War I". Māori Television. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  16. "Invisibility of Maori in World War One". Radio New Zealand. 22 August 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  17. "The Sampling: Legacy by Whiti Hereaka". The Sapling. 21 September 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  18. "Trustees". Maori Literature Trust. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  19. "Commonwealth Writers' Prize Shortlist announced". Creative New Zealand. 18 February 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  20. "Dean Parker & Whiti Hereaka win NZ's major playwriting awards". Creative New Zealand. 26 November 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  21. Edmond, Murray (22 October 2014). "Whiti Hereaka, 2012". Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  22. "Adam NZ Play Award". Playmarket. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  23. "Past Winners: by Author". New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  24. "Whiti Hereaka". Playmarket. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  25. "Winners – 2019". New Zealand Book Awards Trust. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  26. "Whiti Hereaka, Recipient of the NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship 2022". New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  27. "How I write: NZ Festival author and Ockham finalist Whiti Hereaka on favourite books and marginalia". Stuff. 8 March 2022. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  28. "Whiti Hereaka wins New Zealand's Ockham fiction prize for novel subverting Māori myth". the Guardian. 11 May 2022. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
  29. Kemp-Habib, Alice (30 January 2023). "Keegan, Howard and Tóibín make Dublin Literary Award longlist". The Bookseller. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
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