MEET THE WRITERS
2024 NZYWF KEY APPOINTMENTS
Each year we appoint a Guest Curator – a young writer under 35, who will curate the festival programme based on their creative vision. This includes creating their own festival events, and selecting the full festival programme.
We also appoint a Robert Lord Writers Cottage Young Writer in Residence. This Young Writer will spend four weeks at the cottage on a writing project, as well as taking part in the festival and creating events for the programme.
RUBY MACOMBER
GUEST CURATOR
Ruby Macomber (she/her) is a fierce fry-bread-loving daughter of Te Moana-Nui-a Kiwa (Rotuma, Taveuni, Ngāpuhi). They work as a freelance poet, essayist and researcher and are blessed to co-manage Te Kāhui, a rōpū facilitating equitable arts opportunities in Corrections and communities. As part of her NZYWF residency in 2023, Ruby wrote on topics of diaspora, Indigeneity, abolition, sexuality and Rotuman hanuju. Her mahi can be found in Landfall, Metro, Waka Kuaka, The Pantograph Punch, The Spinoff, Starling, Awa Wāhine, and Mana Moana: Pasifika Voices 2023. She features in recently released anthologies, Rapture, Katūīvei, Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another, and co-edited Taiohi Inside, an anthology of creative writing from Mount Eden Correctional Facility.
SHERRY ZHANG
YOUNG WRITER IN RESIDENCE
Sherry Zhang (章雪莉/Xue Li Zhang) (she/they) is a second-generation Chinese New Zealand writer and editor. She has worked across journalism, poetry, creative nonfiction, and theatre. Most recently, she was the kaiwāwahi/editor at The Pantograph Punch, and has interned in newsrooms like The Spinoff and Bloomberg News. You can find more of her writing in places like Starling and Ensemble Mag. She has received the Metro Mag x Deadly Ponies Feature Writing Scholarship, and her co-written play 杨/Yang/Young with Nuanzhi Zheng was a finalist in the b4 25 Playwriting Awards, staged at Basement Theatre with Auckland Theatre Company.
She is interested in genre-bending works that facilitate nuanced discussions on the intersections of class, race, sexuality, gender, and culture. She is currently working on a choose-your-adventure book exploring revenge fantasies, coffee shops, landlords, Queerness, guilt, shame and letting go.
2024 NZYWF CONTENT PRESENTERS
Our Content Presenters are the creative hearts and minds behind the festival. Through an application process, they have their pitched events – workshops, panel discussions, performances and more – which make up the festival programme.
Supported by our leadership team, our Guest Curator, Ruby Macomber, has selected pitches from a variety of content producers to create a cohesive and quality programme for NZYWF 2024. All our Content Presenters are aged 15-35.
We are proud to pay all NZYWF content presenters and artists, in line with industry rates.
Emele
Ugavule
SHE / HER / THEY
2024 NZYWF GUEST WRITERS & ARTISTS
Chosen by our Content Presenters, our incredible guest writers and artists will join our festival events as panel guests, co-hosts and performers. Each year, we have a few writers taking part who are over 35. This is a creative decision made by our Content Presenters, to include an older artist who they may be inspired by, or work closely with.
NINA
BROWN
