Our WORD Christchurch Team

STEPH WALKER

Executive Director

Steph joined WORD in 2022 after being Auckland Arts Festival’s Head of Programming for the past 2 years, returning home to that Festival after 6 years in Australia. While away Steph worked at the Adelaide Festival, produced the OzAsia Festival amongst other events for the Adelaide Festival Centre; Sydney Festival; the City of Sydney’s Art & About programme and was Executive Director at Performance Space, Sydney. Prior to this she held leadership positions at Christchurch Arts Festival during the city’s period of seismic activity (a professional and personal turning point); and at Wellington’s iconic BATS Theatre. Steph is also a freelance arts consultant, sports fan, stress baker, and is on her te reo Māori learning journey.

KIRAN DASS

Programme Director

As a journalist and critic, Kiran has written about books, music and culture for a variety of publications including NZ Listener, NZ Herald, Guardian, The Wire (UK), Metro, North & South, The Spinoff, RNZ, Sunday magazine, Sunday Star-Times, Landfall, and Vice (Aus). Kiran has chaired sessions with international and local authors at WORD Christchurch, Auckland Writers Festival, NZ Festival of the Arts, Verb Wellington, LitCrawl and the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival. She reviews books regularly on RNZ’s Nine to Noon and was convening judge of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and a judge for the same award in 2023. Kiran has fifteen years’ book industry experience working as a bookseller and book buyer for leading independent bookshops in Aotearoa. In 2020 she was awarded a Michael King Writers Centre Residency, and in 2023 was the Verb Wellington Writer in Residence at the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden. 

BLEUETTE HILLE

Marketing and Events Coordinator

Bleu is a huge nerd and book enthusiast. Joining WORD as a volunteer in 2025, Bleu is the newest addition to Team WORD. Alongside this role, they work alongside a range of community organisations including The White Room, TinyFest, Disability Leadership Canterbury and Twisted Frequency. Bleu is on the COGS committee for Christchurch and Banks Peninsula, an advocate for tiny but powerful community organisations. They are a novice poet, with their work published in MAP Journal, Overcom Magazine and their collaborative zine winning the Christchurch Zine Fest poetry award in 2025 When not in front of a page, Bleu is found sewing, knitting and trying to make their smart little dog calm down.

2025 FESTIVAL TEAM

Lydia Thomas – Administrator

Cat Angus – Production Manager 

M Grace-Stent – Ticketing Manager

Hannah Wheeler – Artist Liaison and Schools Coordinator

Penny Hartill – Publicist