Children’s writer and primary school librarian Vanessa Hatley-Owen is the author of When Dad Came Home (Oratia, 2018) and Farewell Anahera (Duck Creek Press, 2023).
She has also been published by Learning Media and Sunshine Books, and has been shortlisted for the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon award (2011 and 2023), and for the Storylines Joy Cowley award (2014).
Describing herself as ‘a real book-worm’, she also writes book reviews for Kids Books NZ, and is part of the management committee of the Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki o Aotearoa organisation. She lives in Auckland.