Heather McQuillan

Heather McQuillan is an award-winning writer based in Ōtautahi Christchurch, New Zealand. As well as writing for young people she writes short fiction, flash fiction and poetry and has been widely published in Aotearoa and internationally. She has a Master of Creative Writing with distinction from Massey University and her thesis collection of short stories was published in the UK as Where Oceans Meet. In 2005 she won the Tom Fitzgibbon Award and three of her novels for young people so far have been awarded Storylines Notable Books. Her previous novels for young writers are Mind Over Matter, Scholastic NZ, 2006; Nest of Lies, Scholastic NZ, 2011; Avis and the Promise of Dragons. The Cuba Press. 2019 and Avis and the Call of the Kraken, The Cuba Press, 2024. Heather is the director of Write On School for Young Writers where she works to give agency to young writers.