King’s Birthday Honours 2026: Whanganui author Joan Rosier-Jones made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit
Joan Rosier-Jones' first novel, Cast Two Shadows, was published in 1986. Photo / Mike Tweed
Joan Rosier-Jones is not sure “you should be honoured for doing something you love”.
But the Whanganui author, playwright and educator said she was pleased to have been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours.
“There are probably a lot of people who deserve it more than I do.
“I just go along, and quietly do my thing.”
She said Auckland author Judith White once said, “In order to be a writer, you have to have had a bad childhood”.
“It was the opposite for me, I had a lovely childhood, but my sister is three years older, and my brother is five years younger,” Rosier-Jones said.
“By the time I was 3, my sister was at school, and my brother hadn’t been born.
“It was a bit like being an only child, and I just developed an imagination and devoured Milly-Molly-Mandy books."
Rosier-Jones trained as a teacher in Christchurch before doing “a long apprenticeship” in writing short stories.
Her first novel, Cast Two Shadows, was based on a friend and published in 1986.
“The next one (Voyagers) was my own family history, and after that, I’ve just made stuff up," she said.
“I tend to jump everywhere. Whatever tickles my fancy.”
She has now had 14 novels published, along with plays and non-fiction books, including ‘So You Want To Write’, Writing Your Family History, and Literary Whanganui: A Reader’s Guide.
As an educator, Rosier-Jones produces course material for the New Zealand Institute for Business Studies.
Previously, she worked in adult education at the University of Auckland and Whanganui’s Community Education Service and curated the Diploma of Creative Writing course for Taranaki Polytechnic.
She moved to Whanganui from Auckland in 2004. “I just love it here”.
In 2006, she launched the biennial Whanganui Literary Festival, now called The Lit. Whanganui Booklovers Festival.
“I’ve decided that this year, we are going to have a local literary festival at the [Davis] library, on the off year from the main one,” Rosier-Jones said.
“That will be our celebration of Whanganui writers.”
Rosier-Jones was also a director with Tangerine Publications and president of the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA), before being named president of honour of the NZSA.
She said she recently finished a short play for Whanganui’s Repertory Theatre and was working on a novel with a working title of Jester.
“It’s about a lad who is going to end up in the court of Henry the Eighth, at the time when his great matter of concern is if he can divorce Catherine of Aragon.
“I just love the Tudor period and doing research.”
But her “favourite thing” was putting on writer retreats.
“You go away for a weekend and do nothing but write, eat and drink.
“I did the first one in Auckland in the late 90s, and now I also do them in Marlborough.
“There have been retreats here [Whanganui], and master classes in Whanganui and Taranaki.”
Rosier-Jones said her mother and father had been role models when it came to reading.
“This is not a hard and fast rule, but to be a writer, you need to read.
“That’s not to copy anything, but to know how a book works.”
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.