about
Jaimie D Baird

Jaimie Baird was born in England in 1952 and brought up in New Zealand from nine years of age. He attended Nelson College, as a boarder, completed a Diploma in Horticulture at Massey University, and then joined the Department of Agriculture in 1972.

In his early thirties, Jaimie watched a TV documentary called Style Wars, bought a book called Subway Art, and met Kosmoe (aka Frosty K) in Manners Mall. The journey of investigating the Hip Hop subculture, ‘bombing’ as an art form, then all things graffiti, had begun.
 
Despite a fascination with art and graphic design, Jaimie acknowledges he lacked the talent and has never been a graffiti artist, or Hip Hopper. He sees himself more as a street photographer and recorder of art history, with a keen interest in social science. Witnessing the creativity has been Jaimie’s privilege.

Without the support of family and friends this book would have remained only a dream.

Redmer Yska

Redmer Yska is an award-winning Wellington writer and historian. He began his career as a copy boy on NZ Truth, gaining a reporting job after writing on Auckland punk rockers.
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In the 1990s, he produced two books about NZ post-war youth culture: NZ Green, the Story of Marijuana in New Zealand and All Shook Up, the Flash Bodgie and the Rise of the NZ Teenager in the 1950s.
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In 2001, Yska explored his identity as a Dutch New Zealander with An Errand Of Mercy, Captain Jacob Eckhoff and the Loss of the Kakanui.
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In 2004, Yska was commissioned to write a history of Wellington City: Wellington: Biography of a City. In 2008, he was awarded the National Library Research Fellowship to write NZ Truth: the Rise and Fall of the Peoples' Paper.

Yska was the major recipient of a NZ History Trust Fund Award in 2014, allowing him to write A Strange Beautiful Excitement: Katherine Mansfield's Wellington 1888-1903. The book was longlisted for the 2018 Ockham Book Awards.

In 2019, an arts grant from Creative NZ allowed him to write Katherine Mansfield's Europe: Station to Station, published in 2023 by Otago University Press.

Matthew Bartlett

Matthew grew up in Masterton, before it was cool. He now lives in Wellington with a rowdy little family. He is enjoying a confused 'career' as a book publisher, software developer, and university chaplain at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington. Matthew has worked for many years with Steele Roberts Aotearoa and a clutch of other Wellington publishers. He is a co-host on the probably-about-to-make-it-big podcast The Happy Revolution.