Kenneth Chapman
Kenneth Chapman (1992 –) is a teacher, filmmaker and bestselling author based in Tāmakai Makaurau, Auckland. He was born in Wellington to a Sāmoan-Chinese mother and an American father. He comes from a big family with six sisters and three brothers. Kenneth enjoys working with children of all ages, and has spent many years as tutor, nanny, sports coach, and Girl Guides leader. He now works as an English Teacher at Auckland Girls’ Grammar School after completing a Bachelor of Education at the University of Auckland in 2024. He credits the children and teens he worked with as major sources of inspiration and encouragement for his stories. He says years spent sharing his stories with his students, and their love and support for his work, gave him the confidence and motivation to keep writing and submit to publishers.
Kenneth began writing as a teenager, starting with screenplays before transitioning to writing books after falling in love with the world of stories through films. Since then, he’s written eight manuscripts ranging from adult romance to YA horror and has written and directed several films. His most notable are Close Enough (2016) and Sister, Please (2018). Both feature-length films premiered at the Madrid International Film Festival, where they were nominated for several awards. Kenneth also wrote and directed the short film Places (2025), which has been shown at indie film festivals worldwide.
Lonasei and the Mystery of Origin Grove (2026) is the first of Kenneth’s novels to be published. The overwhelmingly positive reception from his Girl Guides group and other students gave him the courage to submit Lonasei and the Mystery of Origin Grove to Batemans Books, where it was accepted and published in 2026. Within a month of release, it reached the top spot on New Zealand Children’s and Young Adults’ bestselling books list.
Motivated by the lack of representation for mix-raced Polynesian protagonists in the books Kenneth read as a kid, Lonasei and the Mystery of Origin Grove is about a mix-raced girl who discovers another world through the paintings left behind by her late Aunt Malia in the mysterious childhood home of her mother.
Bestselling author of Dreamslinger, Graci Kim, describes Lonasei and the Mystery of Origin Grove as “haunting and tender, you will never look at paintings (or basement walls!) the same way again.”
Kenneth has a sequel novel, Lonasei and the Spy Next Door, scheduled for an early release in 2027. Following the death of an elderly neighbour, Lonasei teams up with the new girl next door to unravel the suspicious mystery around the death.
His first published YA novel, Unsheltered, Undead is also set to release in 2027. A dystopian-thriller, Unsheltered, Undead follows seventeen-year-old Tully and her friends on a 500km road trip down the North Island in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
Kenneth enjoys writing for children and teens. In an interview with Radio NZ, he explains how his experience teaching working with children and teens gives him insight into creating believable, true characters of that age. He’s excited to keep sharing his passion for writing with more young readers. In 2026, he appeared at the Auckland Writers Festival as part of the School’s Programme and regularly visits schools as part of Read NZ Te Pou Muramura’s Writers in Schools programme.
