Come and join panellists Emma Wehipeihana (Espiner), Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku and Craig Hoyle in conversation with Caroline Barron.

Join Caroline Barron as she chairs a memoir panel with panellists Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, Emma Wehipeihana (Espiner) and Craig Hoyle.

Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) has degrees from the University of Auckland and University of Waikato. An Emeritus Professor, she has worked as a curator, lecturer, critic, researcher and governor in the heritage and university sectors. She is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, a Companion of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a Fellow of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. She has returned to the pā and serves on the Paepae Tapu o Ngāti Whakaue. She’ll be talking about her book Hine Toa.​

Dr. Emma Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and political commentator.
Her podcast on Māori health equity, Getting Better: A Year in the Life of a Māori Medical Student (RNZ/Bird of Paradise Productions) won the Voyager Best Narrative Podcast of the Year in 2021.
In 2020 she won the Opinion Writer of the Year at the Voyager media awards, and her work has featured at newsroom.co.nz, stuff.co.nz, the Guardian, the NZ Herald and in academic and literary journals and books.
Emma lives in Auckland, where she works at Middlemore Hospital as a surgical registrar. The best-selling memoir There’s a Cure for This, published by Penguin Random House in 2023, is her first book.

Craig Hoyle grew up in Invercargill within the New Zealand Exclusive Brethren. Separated from public society, he attended Brethren-only schooling and worked in his family’s tyre shop. After facing interrogations and conversion therapy for his sexuality, he was excommunicated from the Brethren and lost his family in 2009. Today he is chief news director for the Sunday Star-Times. He has worked for newsrooms such as TV3 and RadioLive, and behind the scenes on current affairs shows including 60 Minutes. He lives in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Free parking is available in Ward and Nisbet Streets and in the Wintec parking building accessed through Ward St. Either use the car parking building lift on Nisbet St to get to the Atrium level or walk up the steps on the side of the building visible from the corner of Anglesea and Ward Streets. Free parking is available on campus but avoid where resident or hostel parking only is stipulated. Look out for our Hamilton Book Month flag banners.

​Poppies Hamilton will have the authors’ books for sale and signing.