Tuesday 19 May 2026: Maddie Ballard (she/her) is a writer of mixed Chinese heritage from Aotearoa New Zealand.

Her debut essay collection was published as Bound: A Memoir of Making and Remaking(The Emma Press, 2024) in the UK and Patchwork: A Sewist’s Diary (Tin House, 2025) in the US. She co-edits Starling, a literary journal for emerging New Zealand writers, and writes a sporadic Substack. She currently lives in Melbourne.

In ‘Patchwork’, a charming and evocative sewist’s diary, Maddie Ballard explores the making (and sometimes remaking) of seventeen specific garments over a period of great change in her life—from a jacket lined with the embroidered Cantonese names of her female ancestors, to a dressing gown made as a gift for a dear friend, to an eco-friendly, zero-waste dress.

As the wardrobe grows, so too does Maddie. From her first off-kilter dresses and coats to perfectly fitting pants, readers follow along as she learns to navigate the world around her and how she sees herself in it—both as she is and as she hopes to be.

Stitch by stitch, word by word, Maddie drafts her own patterns for ways of living. Throughout the diary, delightful illustrations bring Maddie’s creations to life on the page.

With a focus on the practical comfort and pleasure provided by sewing in a time of personal renewal, ‘Patchwork: A Sewist’s Diary’ is a warmhearted celebration of the value of craft in the modern age.