Mandy Hager is a multi-award winning writer of fiction for young adults. She has won the LIANZA Book Awards for Young Adult fiction three times (Smashed, 2008; The Nature of Ash, 2013; Dear Vincent, 2014), the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards for YA fiction (The Crossing, 2010), an Honour Award in the 1996 AIM Children’s Book Awards (for Tom’s Story), Golden Wings Excellence Award (for Juno Lucina, 2002), Golden Wings Award (for Run For The Trees, 2003) and five Storylines Notable Book Awards.

She has also been awarded the 2012 Beatson fellowship, the 2014 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship and the 2015 Waikato University Writer in Residence.

In 2015 her novel Singing Home the Whale was awarded the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award, and the Best Young Adult fiction Award from the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. It has also been named a 2016 IBBY Honour Book, an international award. Her historical novel for adults, titled Heloise, was long-listed for the Ockham Book Awards. Her latest book is political thriller, Ash Arising.

Mandy is a trained teacher, with an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts (Whitireia) and an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University. She also writes adult fiction, short stories, non-fiction, educational resources, blogs and articles, and currently tutors the Novel Course for Whitireia’s Creative Writing programme.