Between the Lines - Local Showcase

Come along to this free event at the CHB Museum, hear their stories and celebrate the success of our local authors.
Featuring live music by the talented Maria Williams.
This year our authors include Shelley Burne-Field and Catherine Robertson .

Shelley Burne-Field (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Rārua, Samoa, Pākehā) was the only New Zealander to be shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022, awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. Shelley’s story Speaking in Tongues is described as being about “loss of language, about community, and about being seen and heard”.

Shelley is a fiction and non-fiction writer and graduate of both Te Papa Tupu (Māori Literature Trust) and the Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. Shelley writes for E-Tangata, and her short fiction has appeared on RNZ and in Newsroom and various anthologies. Shelley’s story ‘Pinching out dahlias’ was the most read short story ever published on Steve Braunias’ curated Reading Room, part of the Newsroom online magazine.

Catherine Robertson is a New Zealand bestselling author, and co-owner of Good Books, an independent bookshop in Te Aro, Wellington. In 2020, she was the CNZ/International Institute of Modern Letters Writer in Residence. Catherine is Chair of the Hawke’s Bay Readers & Writers Trust, and a trustee of Verb Wellington. She is a regular guest on Jesse Mulligan’s Book Critic slot on RNZ. Catherine’s latest novel, Spellbound (Penguin Random House) the third in the Gabriel’s Bay trilogy, is out now.

Maria, a local Hawkes Bay musician has been playing originals and covers over the past three decades. Recently back from living on the road and gigging around Aotearoa for 18 months, Maria is loving being back home, living off grid, writing music and hanging out with her muse ... a 350kg pig called Pebbles.