The Grimmelings has been awarded a Storylines Notable Book Award 2024, and has been longlisted in the UKLA awards, which are "given every year for books in which the language is powerful. It must have an effect on the child reader and be memorable in some way because of the…
Exciting news! I am over the moon to share the full announcement of Libertine Pictures adaptation for Sky Originals (NZ) and BYUtv (US) of my middlegrade novel of selkie-folklore-meets-the-New-Zealand-coast, Red Rocks! Look at that beautiful cast! I couldn’t have asked for a better treatment of my story from director David…
It's another busy couple of months for events in October and November! I'll be appearing at the following festivals run by fabulous folks. Hawkes Bay Readers & Writers Festival Saturday, 19 October: Ageless Magic, with Shelley Burne-Field and Claire Mabey, chaired by Catherine Robertson Nelson Arts Festival – Pukapuka Talks…
Thank you very much to Elizabeth Knox, one of the very best writers I know, for this thoughtful and meaningful speech at the Wellington launch of The Grimmelings at Unity Books, February 2024 A missing child, a lonely place. Ella, our protagonist, who is blessed and burdened by a distracted…
I am thrilled to report that The Grimmelings has been shortlisted for the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction in the New Zealand Books Awards for Children & Young Adults! I look forward to hanging out with my writing community (many of whom I know and some…
Here is what writers and reviewers have been saying about The Grimmelings: “The Grimmelings is a compelling, lovingly-crafted novel about magic, liminal spaces (of several kinds), language and folkloric fusion. Rachael King’s characters live and breathe. Her dialogue glitters quietly. She discovers new perspectives in inherited narratives to create a world that is familiar yet unexpected,…
I appeared on RNZ's Nine to Noon show with Kathryn Ryan last month on the day The Grimmelings was launched into the world. We talked language and dark folk tales, the work of Robert Macfarlane and Robin Robertson, taking time to immerse myself in reading, writing and understanding how stories…
Writers have been announced for the Auckland Writers Festival Schools Programme on the week of 14–16 May 2024. I am excited to be appearing alongside Jason Gunn, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Elizabeth Acevedo (all pictured) as well as Steph Matuku, Natalie Haynes (I'll be chairing her conversation for secondary school students)…
