Join Scorpio Books for an evening of celebration, drinks & kai, bookish giveaways and more as they celebrate Reo Māori in books! Four brilliant Māori authors share their experience and wisdom.
Ariana Tikao (Kāi Tahu) is a renowned practitioner and composer of taonga puoro, and an established writer and poet. In April this year, Otago University Press published her first poetry collection Pepeha Portal. She is a New Zealand Arts Laureate who has gained recognition as a soloist with Aotearoa’s principal orchestras and chamber groups such as Stroma and the New Zealand String Quartet. She has also toured with the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company, and Atamira Dance Company. Her arts practice is rooted in her South Island Māori identity, with a palpable connection to place, and ancestral narratives. Ariana’s live performances move between realms, beyond time, and enable audiences to feel like they are being “bundled up in a big feather cloak and transported to another world”.
Isla Huia (Te Āti Haunui a‑Pāpārangi, Uenuku) is a te reo Māori teacher and kaituhi from Ōtautahi. Her debut collection of poetry, Talia, was released in May 2023 by Dead Bird Books, and was shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024. Her work was also featured in the International Institute of Modern Letters’ Ōrongohau Best New Zealand Poems in both 2023 and 2024, and has been published in journals and anthologies throughout Aotearoa as well.
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Nelson and raised in Waimangaroa, and she lived in Germany and Italy before returning to the West Coast with her family. Her debut novel, Auē, won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction as well as the Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book of Fiction at the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. In October 2024, she released its much-awaited sequel Kataraina.
Nic Low is a writer and arts organiser of Ngāi Tahu Maori and European descent. He whakapapas to Ōraka-Aparima at the bottom of the South Island, and was until recently vice-chair of the Ngāi Tahu Ki Melbourne taurahere group. He and his whānau divide their time between a bush retreat in the Castlemaine National Heritage Park, and Christchurch, NZ. In 2021, Text published his beloved mountaineering book Uprising: Walking the Southern Alps of New Zealand.
Nadine Hura (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Pākehā) is a writer whose work connects literature, social policy and environmental justice. Her work with Māori communities on climate research for the Deep South National Science Challenge led to many of the essays in her 2025 book, Slowing the Sun. She has written extensively for The Spinoff, E-Tangata and other platforms. Hura, a Māmā, poet and essayist, lives in Titahi Bay, Wellington, while pursuing her writing and advocacy for the protection of Papatūānuku and revitalisation of matauranga Māori.
All welcome, drinks and nibbles provided. Free event.
Friday 18th September, 6pm in-store at Scorpio Books.