Beale named 2026 NZSA President of Honour
The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (NZSA) has named children’s and YA author Fleur Beale this year’s NZSA President of Honour.
The author of more than 50 titles, Beale has been shortlisted 13 times for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, said NZSA. She has won library and information association LIANZA’s Esther Glenn Award for Fierce September (RHNZ Children’s, 2010). Her title Juno of Taris (RHNZ Children’s, 2008) also won the Esther Glenn Award in 2009.
Beale has received 16 Storylines Notable Book Awards, including in 2007 and 2023, and she won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much Loved Book for Slide the Corner and for I Am Not Esther. She received the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal in 2012 and an ONZM for services to literature in 2015, and she is the current patron of the Dorothy Neale White Children’s Book Collection at the National Library of New Zealand.
Beale said, “I am quite overwhelmed by the honour. The Society of Authors has been such an important part of my life; it’s so reassuring for a writer working away in what feels like the dark to know the society has our backs and is there to throw light on tricky matters and support us.
“I feel that my appointment is an opportunity to spotlight the importance of writing for children, who are, of course, the future readers of books for adults. We need to have a solid cohort of keen readers growing up to advocate for and support New Zealand writing and publishing.”
The NZSA President of Honour delivers the annual NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Lecture. NZSA will announce details of this event in 2026.
NZSA president Vanda Symon said, “We admire [Beale’s] dedication to children’s literature and the importance of telling New Zealand stories as the building blocks of literacy and creating lifelong readers.”
Founded in 1934, NZSA Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa PEN NZ Inc is the principal organisation representing writers in Aotearoa.
More information and a list of previous NZSA President of Honours can be found on the NZSA website.
Category: Awards Local news
