Great Hearts
From the 1870s, a generation of bold women made mountaineering history around Aoraki Mount Cook. They claimed space in the mountains, defying conventions and forging a legacy that shaped every woman who followed. Then their stories were quietly erased.
Drawing on scattered records, oral histories and forgotten stories, Great Hearts resurrects their extraordinary achievements, blending nonfiction with reimagined fiction in a tribute to their resistance, courage and grit.
Hazel Phillips is the author of five non-fiction books, including Fire & Ice: Secrets, Histories, Treasures and Mysteries of Tongariro National Park and Solo: Backcountry Adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has a background in newspaper and magazine journalism, and her work has appeared in media outlets and literary journals across New Zealand and Australia.
Hazel was awarded the Friends of the Hocken Collections Award 2026 and a Ministry for Culture & Heritage Whiria Te Mahara New Zealand History Grant for her research on early women climbers. She has held writer residencies at the Michael King Writers Centre and the Robert Lord Writers Cottage, and in 2025 became the inaugural recipient of the Luna Foundation Writers Residency.
Hazel holds a Master of Creative Writing with first-class honours, as well as an MA in media studies. Her work also appears in the essay anthology Otherhood (Massey University Press, 2024) and the Atlas of Mountaineering (Phaidon Press, forthcoming).
- ISBN-13
- 9781991309341
- Publisher
- Massey University Press
- Imprint
- Massey University Press
- Publication date
- 10 September 2026
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 384
- Dimensions
- 200 x 148 mm
- Language
- English