Wendyl Nissen is a journalist, broadcaster and former magazine editor who is the author of 11 books, mostly about living a chemical-free, old-fashioned life, and one memoir about her mother's dementia.

After writing The Natural Home and A Natural Year Wendyl realised caring for ourselves and other people was going to be even more important when the pandemic hit. This resulted in her book Natural Care (March, 2022). Uncovering old family secrets led her to a better understanding of her mother and publication of My Mother and Other Secrets (2021).

Her other books include A Home Companion (2010), The Road From Midnight (2013) and Bitch and Famous (2007).

Wendyl left the corporate world 22 years ago and now lives in the Hokianga with her husband, 14 chickens (and counting), two

cows, two dogs and three stray cats. Photo credit Joe Frew & NZWW

Ray was the former food editor for Cuisine magazine, the Sunday Star Times magazine, and Consulting Food Director for the New Zealand Herald’s Bite magazine.

His five books are The New Zealand Fish Cookery Book (1986) which was revised and published as Cooking the Catch (1997), The Chicken Cookbook for New Zealanders (1994), The Modern Cook (2001), Eat (2003) and Everyday Sunday (2010). 

He was a professional chef for many years and is an award winning food stylist and food and travel writer, winning the 2005 NZ Guild of Food Writers Visuals Award, the 2006 New Zealand Magazine Publishers Association award for Journalist of the Year, Home and Food Category and the 2009 New Zealand Guild of Foodwriters, Tui Flower Recipe Award. In 2008 he was invited to present his paper on kumara at the prestigious Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery at Oxford University UK. Ray was also one of the star judges in the original first five series of TVNZ’s Masterchef NZ. He is the author of five cookbooks. 

Jo McCarroll has edited NZ Gardener since 2010. She appears frequently on radio and television talking about gardening and is a popular guest speaker at garden festivals across New Zealand. 

She has been named Editor of the Year in her category at the Magazine Media Awards in 2016 and 2017; and NZ Gardener has won Magazine of the Year in its category in 2017 and 2019. Jo is a board member of the Magazine Publishers Association.