Helen is a member of the Storylines Management Committee. She is a former teacher and senior lecturer in language and literacy at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work. In this capacity Helen has spent a career lifetime inspiring children and adults to enjoy children’s and YA literature in general and with special reference to Aotearoa/New Zealand writing and illustration. Helen always managed to find a picture book or a novel to read aloud in every lecture she taught at both undergraduate and post graduate levels of teacher education. Her favourite course to teach within the masters programme was focussed on children’s literature within critical theory; this for the students’ professional application as well as for personal reading pleasure.

Helen is also a published writer and, along with her colleague Judy Hucker, she has written an extensive series of story based graded readers for young children focussing on key concepts in mathematics.

Helen has been a Management Committee member of Storylines for well over a decade and for most of that time she has been the minutes secretary. More recently she has enjoyed a series of Story Tours as a management committee representative alongside the exceptional writers and illustrators this country holds dear.

Helen has facilitated several digital Story Tours and interviewed authors, agents and publishers, face to face and online. Helen has also judged the Tessa Duder and Joy Cowley Awards and has long been participant in the Notable Books selections.

Helen and her family now live in New Plymouth where she has found her way into a richly rewarding Arts and Literature community. These days Zoom, and a now a new Teams connection, mean she can still participate fully in the Management Committee and the hospitality of kind friends and family in Auckland ensures she can attend Storylines events on a regular basis.