In Aotearoa, more people are living without children and challenging the idea that this makes life somehow less meaningful. Otherhood features essays by writers who are childfree, childless or child adjacent, and who've felt like outsiders or faced unexpected paths. Some chose to be childfree, others didn’t, and some navigate loss or blended families—asking, “Am I a parent, or something else?”
Lil is one of the co-editors of OTHERHOOD: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent, published last year, and the author of beloved Kiwi coming-out memoir Not That I'd Kiss a Girl, published in 2020. Lil’s writing has been described as “Admirably frank… Even better is her ability to recount what it's like to come to terms, as fully as one can, with one's own place in the world. She’s an award-winning copywriter by day, and has been published in The Spinoff, takahē, Ensemble magazine and more. Lil is currently writing the screenplay of Not That I’d Kiss A Girl with South Pacific Pictures.
Ghazaleh Gol is an award-winning Iranian-Kiwi author, screenwriter and director. Her book of personal essays, The Girl From Revolution Road, was published in 2020 to much acclaim. Since then, she has contributed to anthologies Te Moana o Reo Ocean of Languages, Otherhood, A Kind of Shelter Whakaruru-taha, and Ko Aotearoa Tatou/We Are New Zealand. Ghazaleh is a Fulbright scholar who studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California and completed her PhD in Media and Communication from the University of Auckland. She is currently working on her second book as well as on a variety of television projects.
Paula Morris MNZM (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri) is an award-winning fiction writer and essayist, and editor of the anthology Hiwa: Contemporary Māori Short Stories (2023). She teaches creative writing at the University of Auckland and edits the Aotearoa NZ Review of Books.
Tāmaki untold: conversations celebrating the taonga, stories and creativity of Auckland. A curated monthly talk series held in the Whare Wānanga hosted by Research and Heritage Services, Auckland Libraries.
