Hachette Aotearoa launches Moa Press

Hachette Aotearoa has established a new imprint, Moa Press, which ‘aims to champion a diverse range of voices, representing a multitude of cultures and perspectives from within Aotearoa New Zealand’.

According to the Spinoff, Moa Press will be led by senior publisher Kate Stephenson, who returned to Aotearoa in 2020 after 11 years in the UK and four years working on Hachette UK’s Wildfire imprint.

‘Our list will be varied and broad-reaching,’ said Moa Press. ‘We are launching some fantastically compelling commercial fiction in 2023—emerging voices we plan to grow into key brand names for the future. We have powerful literary fiction that will provoke conversation and open your eyes to a new way of thinking. And we have escapist reads to whisk you away on a joyful break from reality.’

Among the imprint’s releases for 2023 are The Last Days of Joy (Anne Tiernan, March), about ‘complex family dynamics, the intricacies of motherhood, marriage, and infidelity, and the lingering power of past trauma’; debut novel The Witching Tide (Margaret Meyer, June), set in East Anglia in the 17th century; Tonight, I Burn, the first novel in a YA fantasy trilogy by Katharine J Adams; debut novel The Bone Tree by Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui); and The Girl From London, inspired by events in Auckland during the Second World War and written by Olivia Spooner, owner of independent Milford bookshop The Booklover.

For more information about Moa Press, see the imprint’s website.

Pictured: Kate Stephenson.

Category: Local news