17th June 2022

Metro — MISS AUCKLAND

Karishma Ranchhod started her pageant career with Miss India New Zealand and found it a positive way to connect to her culture. After becoming runner-up, she competed in Miss Five Crowns NZ. Like many others, she found her way into pageants after a low point in her life. “I have a chronic health condition, so growing up was an isolating experience,” she says. “I missed out on a lot of teenage-girl things.”

Initially, Ranchhod hoped other people with similar struggles might see her in a pageant

Bloomberg.com • 27th April 2022

New Zealand’s Tech Stars Moving Offshore Due to Lack Support

In South African townships oppressed because of unemployment, crime, drugs and violence, and where many of the population are suffering from HIV and Aids, this inspiring feature-length documentary follows the journey of six people who transform themselves through yoga, and documents the impact that yoga has on their families, and communities.

Bloomberg.com • 30th March 2022

A Proposed Giant Wind Farm Could Power 11% of New Zealand

In South African townships oppressed because of unemployment, crime, drugs and violence, and where many of the population are suffering from HIV and Aids, this inspiring feature-length documentary follows the journey of six people who transform themselves through yoga, and documents the impact that yoga has on their families, and communities.

6th December 2021

What happens when you’re vocally pro-vax? | Ensemble Magazine

A lot has changed since we first went into lockdown in 2020. Jokes about sourdough baking and crackly zoom calls are getting stale. And while some regions are on track to hit 90 percent of the population doubled-vaxxed, vaccine rollout has also shown a failure to accommodate our Māori and Pasifika whānau, highlighting existing health inequities.

Given these difficult times, it can be frustrating when brands and influencers do the complete opposite to help. Could we forget the embarrassing North

Pantograph Punch • 19th September 2021

Fruit Foragers

Earlier this year, I moved out of home into a really cute flat in Sandringham. The windows don’t quite shut when it rains, their timber frames swollen with dampness, and there’s no insulation. It’s very much a student flat, but I love it. When I came home late from work on my second night here, I discovered a magical chai van. Chai Wala Bhai sits at the end of my street and Chris Bhai always greets me with a smile. His South Indian breakfast foods and midnight tea hangouts around the van are a s

Āhua Collective 3.0 • 19th September 2021

Āhua Collective 3.0 — Samuel Bailey

Decolonising our creative future

NZ Herald • 19th September 2021

North Shore 21-year-old, Chloe Gong becomes a US bestseller

By the time she was 19, Chloe had already written eight novels. Photo / Instagram

Chloe Gong wrote These Violent Delights in her childhood home in Auckland in May 2018. As in: that month she started writing it, and also finished. She was 19.

Seven months later she landed a "very nice deal" with Simon & Schuster – while she can't reveal the exact figure, not even to old friends like me, the two-book contract is worth somewhere between US$50,000-$99,000.

The novel is a revamping of Romeo and Ju

The Spinoff • 24th July 2021

Your queer Chinese-New Zealand teenage fantasy: How we wrote Yang/Young/杨

Yang/Young//杨 is a brand-new Gen-Z coming-of-age story with a Kiwi-Asian twist, part of Auckland Theatre Company’s Here & Now Festival. Co-writer Sherry Zhang reflects on writing her first play.

I never thought I’d write a play. In a scene that puts High School Musical’s Troy Bolton to shame, I chose the rowing team over the high school musical in Year 12. Maybe no one really sets out to write a play. There are far superior… sexier writing jobs out there. Author, poet, journalist, copywriter? H

The Spinoff • 11th December 2020

The big business of making music for movies