Rachael King


Rachael King is a New Zealand writer of fiction for both children and adults. Her book Red Rocks won the LIANZA Esther Glen Award and was adapted into a 2025 television series Secrets at Red Rocks. For eight years she was Literary Director of the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival.

Background

King was born in 1970, in Hamilton, New Zealand. In 2001 she received a Master of Arts in creative writing from Victoria University of Wellington.
King is a bass guitarist and has played with several bands on the Flying Nun label.
King's father was the historian and author Michael King and her brother is filmmaker Jonathan King.

Works

King has published five novels:The Sound of Butterflies Magpie Hall Red Rocks, novel for childrenThe Grimmelings Violet and the Velvets, The Case of the Missing Stuff Violet and the Velvets, The Case of the Angry Ghost
Short stories by King have been published in several anthologies including in Home: New Short Short Stories by New Zealand Writers and Creative Juices.
In 2013, King became Literary Director of the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival. She was a judge for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in 2017.
King's book Red Rocks was adapted into a 2025 television series Secrets at Red Rocks.

Awards

In 2007, King's first novel The Sound of Butterflies won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Her novel for children, Red Rocks, was shortlisted for the Junior Fiction category in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards and won the LIANZA Esther Glen Award.
King was the 2008 Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury. She has also won the 2005 Lilian Ida Smith Award.
The Case of the Missing Stuff was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Junior Fiction Award 2025. Violet and the Velvets, The Case of the Missing Stuff and The Case of the Angry Ghost were both named as Storylines Notable Junior fiction Books for 2025.