Renée Hapimarika van de Weert is the author of New Zealand Post 2002 short-listed children's books "The Last Whale" and the Maori version "Te Tohora Whakamutanga". She has worked as a lab technician, kitchen hand, sheep and beef farmer, veterinary assistant, budget advisor, adult literacy tutor, creative writing tutor, agricultural journalist and columnist, parliamentary electorate agent. She was always willing to turn her hand to every work/life experience that came her way and loved every one of them, not least, she says, because it was all fuel for her writerly fires. Wife of one, mother of two, grandmother of three, reader, writer and political nerd, she has retired to the beach to write full time. The seeds of 'Reveille' were planted way back in 1982 and 'Book 1 - Resistance' is the first fruit.