Fleur Beale ONZM has written over 50 books and readers for children and young adults plus one non-fiction book for adults. Her books have been shortlisted 13 times for the NZ Childrens and Young Adults Book Awards. She won the NZCYP Young Adult category award in 2011 for Fierce September, which also won the LIANZA Esther Glenn Award. Her book Juno of Taris also won the LIANZA Esther Glenn Award. She has received 16 Storylines Notable Book Awards, and twice won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for A Much Loved Book for Slide the Corner and I am not Esther. She has had many stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand for both children and adults.
Fleur was awarded the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal in 2012, and an ONZM for services to literature in 2015, and is the current patron of the Dorothy Neale White Children’s Book Collection at the National Library of New Zealand.
She is a manuscript assessor and a member of the Association of Manuscript Assessors NZ, she has given many workshops on writing to young people and adults, judged many writing competitions and has worked as a mentor. For several years she taught creative writing at night classes and took a workshop on assessment for students at the excellent Whitireia publishing course until cuts kicked in, and the admin stopped employing guest lecturers.
It matters deeply to Fleur that NZ young people have books that resonate with their lives and experiences which is why she started writing books set in our country and with text reflecting the way we speak.
Photo credit Tabitha Arthur
Verb Readers & Writers Festival 2026 events Fleur Beale features in: