Diana Menefy

Growing up in the South Island, Diana Menefy loved the snowy mountains, autumn colours, and braided rivers. Then she married a farmer and settled in a Northland valley, where lush bush and sparkling streams turn into raging torrents and cut off access to the world. Within her valley, ex-nurse Diana punctuated farm and family life with emergency calls while nurturing a second career – writing. This brought publication and prizes, tours, a master’s degree in Education, specialising in Children’s Literature and a teaching career on NorthTec’s online writing programme. Now retired, Diana splits her time between family, gardening and writing.

Diana’s first stories and articles were published in the New Zealand Farmer and School Journal in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but she got side-tracked into journalism. During the 1980s and 1990s most of her published work was non-fiction and she spent five years as a part-time feature writer for the Northern Advocate, then went freelance to work on commissioned histories. Her first junior novel River Crossing was published by Reeds in 2001. In 2010 her second junior novel Shadow of the Boyd, set in 1809, was published by HarperCollins. This book was a finalist in the NZ Post Awards and went on to win the LIANZA Esther Glen medal.  Her next historical novel 1915 Wounds of War, was one of the Scholastic Kiwis at War series and is still selling. Diana’s latest novel Chasing Silver is set in 1891-92 and is currently with Scholastic New Zealand.

Her picture book illustrated by MarleneLaugensen, I Had A Brother was published by OneTree House and won a Storylines Notable Book Award for 2020.  

Nothing Stops the Floods, about Hukerenui District involvement in the Hikurangi Swamp Scheme from 1890s to 2020, and the big weather events that affected the lives of those who live in the district was published by Jadepress in 2021.