Melanie Dixon
Melanie Dixon earned her MCW from the University of Auckland in 2020. She also has a MSc from Oxford University, and a BSc from the University of York. Her writing has been extensively published and anthologised internationally, including in takahē, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, Bonsai and Flash Frontier. She has been shortlisted for the Manhire Award for Creative Science Writing, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut novel: A New Dawning: Part One of The Edge of Light Trilogy was published with One Tree House in May 2023 and was awarded a Storylines Notable Book Award. Melanie is also a graduate (cum laude) of Hagley Writers’ Institute and has spent many years tutoring and mentoring writers.
Joanna Preston
Joanna Preston is a poet, editor and creative writing tutor. She has an MPhil in Creative writing from the University of Glamorgan (now The University of South Wales) and runs The Poetry Class. Her second poetry collection, tumble (Otago University Press, 2021) won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She lives in semi-rural Canterbury with her husband and a flock of much loved chooks.