Tiny Moons

Tiny Moons is a collection of essays about food and belonging. Nina Mingya Powles journeys between Wellington, Kota Kinabalu and Shanghai, tracing the constants in her life: eating and cooking, and the dishes that have come to define her. Through childhood snacks, family feasts, Shanghai street food and student dinners, she attempts to find a way back towards her Chinese-Malaysian heritage.

​​Nina Mingya Powles is a poet, writer and zinemaker from Aotearoa New Zealand, currently based in the UK. Her debut poetry collection, Magnolia 木蘭, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was a finalist in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. In 2018 she was one of three winners of the Women Poets Prize, and in 2019 won the inaugural Nan Shepherd Prize. She has published two books of essays, Tiny Moons (The Emma Press, 2020) and Small Bodies of Water (Canongate, 2021).
Nina is also the author of several poetry pamphlets and zines. Slipstitch, a pamphlet of poems and collages, was published by Guillemot Press in 2024. She is part of 'field notes collective', a collaborative nature writing project alongside Jessica J. Lee, Alycia Pirmohamed and Pratyusha. this too is a glistening, a collaborative pamphlet, was published in November 2024.
Her latest poetry collection, In the Hollow of the Wave, was published by Nine Arches Press in July 2025.