Kyle is one of New Zealand’s most eclectic and prolific writers. From multi-layered picture books (Old-Hu-hu; Hill & Hole) to laugh-out-loud junior fiction series (Dinosaur Rescue; Dragon Knight), her titles have been translated into eighteen languages and won numerous awards including Children’s Book of the Year.
She was Children’s Writer-in-Residence at Otago University in 2011 and President of the New Zealand Society of Authors from 2013-2017.
Her memoir – Faking It: My Life In Transition – was published in March 2021.
In 2010, Kyle was the chief instigator of an interactive on-line writing project for kids – FaboStory. This year the project celebrated its eleventh anniversary, during which time it’s had multiple incarnations. In its original version, 10 established children’s writers signed up to write a chapter of a joint novel. At the same time, kids were invited to write their own versions of the next chapter and compare it to the writers’ version. Kyle wrote the first chapter and it has been sitting on the back burner of her imagination ever since. Her residency project is the result of deciding what to do with this chapter and she is working on a middle-grade sustainability fable for our unsettling times. It looks at how in a world beset by dysfunction and negativity, it takes courage to stand against the corrosive power of self-interest.