Author photo: Ebony Lamb
Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) is the author of three acclaimed novels: Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings, The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke, and most recently The Mires. Her collection of essays, This Compulsion In Us, is published in 2025. In 2022, her essay ‘Lumpectomy’ won the Landfall Essay Prize, and in 2016, her short story ‘Black Milk’ won the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize for the Pacific Region. Her first novel won the 2014 Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award for Fiction, also won by her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, in 2011. Alongside Witi Ihimaera, she co-edited Black Marks on the White Page, an anthology that celebrates Māori and Pasifika writing. Tina has curated exhibitions on social and cultural history at Wellington Museum, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision and the Courtenay Place light boxes, and been guest curator for book festivals. She has been awarded numerous residencies and presented her work in Australia, Frankfurt, Taipei, Jamaica, Canada and the UK. Tina teaches a Master of Arts in Creative Writing workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters.
