Stacy Gregg (Ngāti Mahuta/Ngāti Pukeko/Ngāti Maru Hauraki) grew up in Ngāruawāhia. Her essay about her home town, The Māoris From The Town Side of the River won the Voyager national journalism award in 2023 and her middle-grade novel Nine Girls, exploring similar themes, won the supreme Margaret Mahy Award at the NZ children's book awards in 2024. The undisputed queen of pony fictions she is HarperCollins NZ’s third best-selling children’s author of all-time after David Walliams and Dr Seuss. Her Pony Club Secrets series (totalling 13 books) sold over 1.5 million copies globally in English alone and later became the CBBC TV series Mystic which ran for three seasons. Her new book, The Last Journey, will be published by Simon & Schuster UK in July and is a beautiful and heart-achingly sad animal adventure with cats and a strong environmental message. Stacy also writes for TV including the international hit cosy crime series My Life Is Murder starring Lucy Lawless.