Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith: 2022
Established Pasifika Writers Residency

Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith: 2022
Established Pasifika Writers Residency

Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith: 2022
Established Pasifika Writers Residency
1333 1335 Michael King Writers Centre

Pauline is an author and educationalist of Samoan, Tuvaluan, Scottish and Irish heritage.  Her first book Dawn Raid: My New Zealand Story received Best New Author at the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and a Storylines NZ Notable Book Award in 2019. It was released as an audio book in Aotearoa and published in America by Levine Querido in 2021.

Her work is heavily influenced by her experiences growing up in the 1970’s, her roles as a teacher and university educator, her passion for civil rights and justice and her deep interest in valuing and uplifting NZ Māori and Pasifika cultures.  She produced and toured the exhibition “The Dawn Raids – Educate to Liberate” has written for the School Journal series and contributed to an academic publication “Through that which separates us”. Along with fellow Polynesian Panther members she toured Aotearoa in 2019 and 2021 taking the “Educate to Liberate” programme to the regions.

During her residency – our 15th for the year, Pauline will be developing another book for children and young people based on the Hikoi – Māori Land March of 1975.

*Photo by James Jubb