News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Kirsten Gilmour Cooks up Café Culture in Cairngorms

Kirsten Gilmour Cooks up Café Culture in Cairngorms

Kirsten Gilmour, 38, owner of a multi-award winning restaurant in Aviemore, Scotland, is also the proud author of new cookbook, The Mountain Cafe Cookbook: A Kiwi in the Cairngorms. Gilmour is a great success story…

Wellington Ranked #2 in List of Cleanest Capital Cities

Wellington Ranked #2 in List of Cleanest Capital Cities

Wellington has been ranked the second cleanest capital city on earth in a ranking published in The Telegraph following a report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that “suggested pollution now poses a greater…

Monica Galetti’s Mere Gets Judged

Monica Galetti’s Mere Gets Judged

The judge becomes the judged as MasterChef: The Professionals star New Zealander Monica Galetti opens her own restaurant Mere in Fitzrovia, London. The Evening Standard books a table. “As if leaving behind a two Michelin-starred…

Maggie Hewitt’s Collection Taps Cool-Girl Charm

Maggie Hewitt’s Collection Taps Cool-Girl Charm

Twenty-two-year-old Auckland fashion designer Maggie Hewitt, the first New Zealander to be shortlisted for the LVMH Prize, has just released the third collection for her brand Maggie Marilyn. “The feeling was laid-back yet feminine,” according…

Forager Shane Harrison Finds Dinner in London

Forager Shane Harrison Finds Dinner in London

Shane Harrison, a New Zealander who came to London in 2002 via Ireland, has opened two restaurants, Shane’s on Canalside and Shane’s on Chatsworth. Harrison has also embraced foraging as a staple…

Lonely’s Latest Campaign Embraces Beauty Of Ageing

Lonely’s Latest Campaign Embraces Beauty Of Ageing

As New Zealand-based label Lonely continues to break down barriers in the world of lingerie, they’re back with another powerful campaign for spring, this time around, celebrating the beauty of ageing. Their latest muse is…

Getting to Know NZ Explorer Helen Thayer

Getting to Know NZ Explorer Helen Thayer

Helen Thayer left New Zealand in 1961 after marrying American helicopter pilot Bill, first living in Guatemala and Honduras, before settling in the United States. But, interviewed via email from her home at the…

It’s Time to Rethink Peter Jackson’s King Kong

It’s Time to Rethink Peter Jackson’s King Kong

“History has been too unkind to which should be remembered not as lumbering and mindless, but as majestic and mesmerising,” according to critic Chris Hartwell writing for…

Violinist Alexandra Lomeiko Performs in Worthing

Violinist Alexandra Lomeiko Performs in Worthing

Christchurch-born violinist Alexandra Lomeiko recently performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra. Chichester Observer journalist Phil Hewitt writes: “Lomeiko was born in 1991 into a family of musicians and started playing at the…

First-Class Tom Pritchard Celebrates a Century

First-Class Tom Pritchard Celebrates a Century

Right-armer Tom Pritchard, who has just turned 100, was born in Taranaki and took 818 first-class wickets at 23.30 – sitting fourth on New Zealand’s first-class wicket-taking list behind Sir Richard Hadlee – but…

Niki Caro in Warsaw for Holocaust Biopic

Niki Caro in Warsaw for Holocaust Biopic

Hollywood stars, including New Zealand director Niki Caro, recently hit the red carpet in Warsaw for a gala screening of a film about a Polish couple who risked their lives to hide hundreds of…

Discovery’s First Ever Global Intern is Ben Mikha

Discovery’s First Ever Global Intern is Ben Mikha

After 10 weeks, 10,000 entries and almost a million votes cast, Discovery Channel has found its first global intern, 25-year-old Ben Mikha from Auckland. As the inaugural Discovery intern Mikha will soon jet off to…

Footrot Flats Creator Murray Ball a National Hero

Footrot Flats Creator Murray Ball a National Hero

Murray Ball, the creator of the widely read Footrot Flats cartoon that celebrated rural life in New Zealand, has died in Gisborne at the age of 78. Ball’s immensely popular Footrot Flats strip, starring farmer…

Tami Neilson Has Canadian Fans Wanting More

Tami Neilson Has Canadian Fans Wanting More

In the opening slot on a recent North American tour with Canadian singer-songwriter Colin James was Tami Neilson, a Mississauga-bred, New Zealand-based dynamo whose 30-minute sets created a buzz with audiences. Neilson and her…

New Zealander On A Mission To Turn Japan Green

New Zealander On A Mission To Turn Japan Green

In the aftermath of the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake and Japan’s Tohoku triple disaster Tokyo-based Kiwi Jon Walsh decided he needed to build a more sustainable and resource-independent lifestyle. Today he is sharing his…

Hobbit Holes To Be Recreated by Glamping Firm

Hobbit Holes To Be Recreated by Glamping Firm

A corner of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth will be recreated at Craighead Howff, near Braco in Scotland after a glamping firm was given the green light to build two underground holiday huts,…

Auckland: New Zealand’s City of 50 Volcanoes

Auckland: New Zealand’s City of 50 Volcanoes

“Sprawling between both coasts of the North Island, New Zealand’s largest city is known as the “city of sails” for the yachts that occupy its harbors. But Auckland could just as easily be dubbed…

Christchurch Trends Among Connecticut Travellers

Christchurch Trends Among Connecticut Travellers

Among travel fare aggregator website Kayak’s Connecticut users, Christchurch has ranked as the No 1 trending destination. Nutmeg State users’ searches done between June 2016 and January 2017 for flights to the city between…

KJ Apa Shines on the Big Screen

KJ Apa Shines on the Big Screen

Currently starring as the lead in hit television series Riverdale, which features characters from the Archie comic-books series, teen sensation New Zealander KJ Apa makes his big-screen debut in the moving tale A Dog’s…

5 Offbeat New Zealand Destinations

5 Offbeat New Zealand Destinations

As tempting as “running off to the tropics or backpacking through the tourist destinations of Europe” are, “the hidden gem of getaways is absolutely New Zealand,” writes Shenkeri in an article on

Take Food Instagrams as Appetising as Sam Murphy’s

Take Food Instagrams as Appetising as Sam Murphy’s

Vegan chef and author of Beautifully Real Food New Zealander Sam Murphy, 24, explains how to make Instagram food snaps really whet the appetite. Murphy posts pretty picture after pretty picture of glistening, brightly-coloured doughnuts…

Lang Leav’s Debut Novel Sad Girls out in May

Lang Leav’s Debut Novel Sad Girls out in May

International bestselling author New Zealander Lang Leav, known for her titles Love & Misadventure, Lullabies, Memories and The Universe of Us, is set to debut as a novelist this year. Leav recently took to

New Zealand Leading Country For Female Entrepreneurs

New Zealand Leading Country For Female Entrepreneurs

“New Zealand has been named the best country for supporting female entrepreneurship, according to MasterCard’s inaugural Index of Women Entrepreneurs,” writes Faaez Samadi for Campaign Asia. “While there is still work to do,…

Wine Producers Balancing the Old with the New

Wine Producers Balancing the Old with the New

New wave wine producing has been “unusually slow” to catch on in New Zealand, according to British wine critic Jancis Robinson, “even though the country’s wine business is enjoying an unprecedented level of self-confidence.” “The…

A Conversation with Ann Shelton

A Conversation with Ann Shelton

“A selection of Wellington artist Ann Shelton’s “prolific practice has been brought together in her review exhibition, Dark Matter, at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, which opened on 26 November 2016 and continues…

Nadia Reid’s Lovelorn Folk Perfectly Crafted

Nadia Reid’s Lovelorn Folk Perfectly Crafted

New Zealand singer Nadia Reid, 25, has “decidedly upped the ante” on her second album Preservation, according to Guardian reviewer Dave Simpson. “ ethereal, pensive vocals are cast against plangent folk-guitar shapes, but there is…

Todd Corporation Saves Canadian Mine Plans

Todd Corporation Saves Canadian Mine Plans

The company behind a proposed tungsten and molybdenum mine in New Brunswick, Canada, which was running so low on cash six months ago it was borrowing money at credit card interest rates, is suddenly…

Millbrook Resort to Host ISPS Handa NZ Open This Week

Millbrook Resort to Host ISPS Handa NZ Open This Week

The spectacular Millbrook Resort in Queenstown, New Zealand, hosts the ISPS Handa New Zealand Open this week.  The biggest event on the New Zealand golfing calendar, the tournament tees off from 9-12…

Warner’s Meg Helps Launch Kumeu Film Studio

Warner’s Meg Helps Launch Kumeu Film Studio

New Zealand’s newest production facility, the Kumeu Film Studio is to launch thanks to a three-way partnership built around the China-Hollywood co-produced, action-adventure film Meg, according to an exclusive story in Variety. The studio facility…

Unusual and Unique Whiskey to Hit US Market

Unusual and Unique Whiskey to Hit US Market

Premier spirit brand Stolen Rum, founded in Auckland by Jamie Duff and Roger Holmes, will release their 11-year corn whiskey in the United States this month. Paste Magazine’s Jim Vorel gives it a taste. “On…

Sailor Conrad Colman’s Work with the Ocean

Sailor Conrad Colman’s Work with the Ocean

Already haunted by the death of his father in a sailing accident, New Zealand-born Conrad Colman was forced to confront his own mortality during the Vendée Globe – a non-stop, 45,000-km, solo sailing race. “My…

Trevor Loudon’s Enemies Within Screens in US

Trevor Loudon’s Enemies Within Screens in US

Christchurch political activist Trevor Loudon’s documentary Enemies Within screened recently in northern Virginia. Loudon spoke about the film for the first time at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Loudon started his political action…

Ashleigh Young Wins Major Literary Prize

Ashleigh Young Wins Major Literary Prize

It is the kind of news we all dream of receiving, but New Zealand author and poet Ashleigh Young, 33, thought it was a hoax when told she’d receive more than $200,000 from one…

Team New Zealand Hopes to Pedal to America’s Cup Victory

Team New Zealand Hopes to Pedal to America’s Cup Victory

“With its resources, Oracle Team U.S.A., the defending champion, is the favorite for the 2017 America’s Cup, to be held in Bermuda in June. But Emirates Team New Zealand is, as usual, full of…

Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Next Chapter

Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Next Chapter

Lorde’s comeback single Green Light, is an “upbeat announcement of change,” according to the Atlantic, one of many international publications praising the “inventive” pop singer’s new direction. “People have been waiting for Lorde’s future for…

Rugby’s Sene Naoupu Makes Irish Times Top 30 List

Rugby’s Sene Naoupu Makes Irish Times Top 30 List

To mark International Women’s Day, the Irish Times features 30 women who are shaping Irish life, including New Zealand-born rugby player Sene Naoupu. “In a short space of time, Naoupu has become a key player…

D.I.Y. Coffin Clubs Catch On in New Zealand

D.I.Y. Coffin Clubs Catch On in New Zealand

“Roger Terry and his wife, Grace, have little interest in quilting, fishing or book clubs. Instead, they meet with other retired friends each Tuesday at a disused sports center to build coffins, a hobby…

Four Years After America’s Cup Loss, Team New Zealand Is Not Over It

Four Years After America’s Cup Loss, Team New Zealand Is Not Over It

“The makeshift cafeteria was all but empty, and Dan Bernasconi, the design coordinator for Emirates Team New Zealand, was speaking quietly about being on the wrong end of one of the greatest comebacks in…

First-Rate Wines from Marlborough

First-Rate Wines from Marlborough

“New Zealand is home to some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes: rugged mountain ranges, lush rainforests, and tranquil coastlines. New Zealand’s unique terroir also yields crisp, vibrant, lively wines reflecting the very essence…

10 Best Hostels in New Zealand

10 Best Hostels in New Zealand

“New Zealand is an incredible country. One of the most photogenic places I’ve ever been. An extensive collection of excellent hostels means travelling there doesn’t have to be expensive,” writes Geoffrey Morrison in an…

Salted Red Roo from Attica Shines

Salted Red Roo from Attica Shines

“The World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards are coming to Australia in April and it’s going to be a culinary tour de force like we’ve never seen before,” according to Good Food’s Callan Boys. “To…

Everyone Should Read This Fairy Tale

Everyone Should Read This Fairy Tale

“Promised Land, a new children’s book that encourages LGBTQ acceptance (not to mention smashes any taboo around the subject) is so powerful,” Kaleigh Fasanella writes for Teen Vogue. “New Zealand-based authors, Adam Reynolds and…

New Zealand Number One for ‘Sociability and Being Beautiful’

New Zealand Number One for ‘Sociability and Being Beautiful’

New Zealand is ranked number one for ‘sociability and being beautiful’ in an index published by The Telegraph, which examines what different countries around the world are number one in. “The Legatum Prosperity Index, which,…

Shortland Street Gets Exposure on Jimmy Kimmel Live

Shortland Street Gets Exposure on Jimmy Kimmel Live

New Zealand’s soap opera Shortland Street has gotten exposure on America’s Jimmy Kimmel Live show as Jimmy Kimmel, Guillermo Rodriguez and Alec Baldwin re-enacted its recent penis-cliffhanger scene on the show. “Soap operas…

James Sutherland Shaking Up Japanese Theatre

James Sutherland Shaking Up Japanese Theatre

Founded in 2012 by New Zealand-born James Sutherland, you won’t be alone if you’ve never heard of the Tokyo-based International Centre for Theatre Arts, because few have seen any plays it has staged and…

Emilia Wickstead’s Latest is Sophisticated Off-Duty

Emilia Wickstead’s Latest is Sophisticated Off-Duty

“British designers have a reputation for making rabble-rousing fashion, but on the flip side of that anarchic coin is a traditionalist, lady-of-the-manor aesthetic. Emilia Wickstead is well acquainted with this rarefied milieu,”…

John McBeth Launches Book on Indonesia’s SBY

John McBeth Launches Book on Indonesia’s SBY

New Zealand-born veteran correspondent John McBeth captured the darker side of former Indonesian president Susilo “SBY” Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency in his new book The Loner: President Yudhoyono’s Decade of Trial and Indecision. The title is…

Tributes to Tania Dalton

Tributes to Tania Dalton

“Former Silver Fern netballer Tania Dalton has died peacefully in Auckland, nearly a week after suffering a brain aneurysm,” as reported in The Guardian. Dalton suffered the internal aneurysm during a social game of…

Brad McCormick Takes His Kids Show on the Road

Brad McCormick Takes His Kids Show on the Road

New Zealand-born writer and performer Brad McCormick is taking his production of Sammy and the Snow Leopard, under the auspices of the ground-breaking children’s theatre company Travelling Light, to the North-East of the UK…

Monica Galetti’s New Venture Mere About to Open

Monica Galetti’s New Venture Mere About to Open

Monica and David Galetti have left their chef and sommelier roles at Le Gavroche to start anew in Fitzrovia. They talk work-life balance, Brexit and the joy of champagne with the Financial Times. The couple…

Suzie Dawson Seeking Asylum in Moscow

Suzie Dawson Seeking Asylum in Moscow

Suzie Dawson didn’t set out to be an activist, but her involvement with the Occupy movement at the start of the decade led her to nut out and articulate her political perspective. The path…

Tempted To Move Out Of The U.S.? Wellington Wants To Help You Escape

Tempted To Move Out Of The U.S.? Wellington Wants To Help You Escape

After the presidential election, visits from U.S. citizens to the Immigration New Zealand website and New Zealand Now, a website about living, working, studying and investing in the country, soared,” writes Laura Begley Bloom…

NZ Cyclists Claim Winning Medal Haul

NZ Cyclists Claim Winning Medal Haul

“The New Zealand track cycling team won four medals on the final night of riding at the latest World Cup in Los Angeles to be crowned the overall round winner,” as reported by

John Gilbert and Dan Lemmon Win at Oscars

John Gilbert and Dan Lemmon Win at Oscars

Two New Zealanders have won at the 89th Academy Awards: John Gilbert won Best Editing for his work on the WWII drama Hacksaw Ridge and Dan Lemmon won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects…

Parkinson’s Disease Breakthrough

Parkinson’s Disease Breakthrough

University of Auckland scientists have made a breakthrough in potential treatments for the debilitating Parkinson’s disease by identifying how it spreads in the brain. The scientists said they had the first strong evidence that the…

Nadia Reid’s New LP an Ode to Self-Reflection

Nadia Reid’s New LP an Ode to Self-Reflection

Nadia Reid’s new video for The Arrow and The Aim, taken from her forthcoming album Preservation, was shot in an abandoned house surrounded by stunning landscapes in Mt Somers, just outside of Christchurch. “I guess…