June Mitchell was born in Wellington and was educated in Wanganui where she spent most of her life. She was involved in many years of careful research in preparation for her book on Meretini Te Akau entitled Amokura.
Biographical sources
- Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 1: Te Whakahuatanga O Te Ao: Reflections of Reality. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1992. 25.
Non-fiction
- Amokura. Auckland, N.Z.: Longman Paul, 1978. Rpt. in two extracts in Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 1: Te Whakahuatanga O Te Ao: Reflections of Reality. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1992. 25-37.
- An historical novel based on the life Te Akau Horohau and her English settler husband Thomas Uppadine Cook and their life together in Foxton. June Mitchell draws upon letters and other 19th century manuscripts to write this account of Te Akau and states ‘I have tried to let a Māori voice speak to us from her pathway through the nineteenth century; to let her speak with her own account and use her own rhythms of discovery, her own imagery, her own beliefs.’ [Dust cover of Amokura]