Cassie Hart (aka J.C. Hart and Nova Blake) is a Māori (Kāi Tahu, Makaawhio) speculative fiction writer who enjoys delving into human nature in all its beauty and disarray.
Over the past five years she has published over ten novel and novellas, and has had her work printed in various anthologies including: A Foreign Country, Baby Teeth: Bite-sized Tales of Terror, Cthulhu: Land of the Long White Cloud, Regeneration, and Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy Volume 1. She also co-edited and contributed to the Sir Julius Vogel winning benefit anthology, Tales for Canterbury. She has been a finalist for the SJV’s many times, as well as a finalist for short fiction for the Australian Shadow Awards.
In 2021 she is a Hugo finalist for Best Related Work with the awesome CoNZealand Fringe team, an Australian Shadow Awards finalist for Best Collected Work with the awesome T Wood (Black Dogs, Black Tales), and a Sir Julius Vogel Award finalist for Best Novella (Hexes & Vexes, published under Nova Blake), Best Fan Production/Publication for her FIYAHCon Guest of Honour speech, and Services to Science Fiction and Fantasy for her work during the prior year.
In 2018 she was selected as one of six emerging Māori writers to participate in the Te Papa Tupu incubator programme, where she worked on her novel, Butcherbird, a supernatural suspense set under the watchful gaze of Mount Taranaki. Butcherbird is releasing in 2021 from Huia.
She lives with her husband, three daughters, and assortment of animals in beautiful Aotearoa.
You can find her on twitter HERE, and her blog and newsletter HERE.