Full details here

The Lilian Ida Smith Award is offered by the NZ Society of Authors PEN Inc (NZSA) thanks to a bequest from Lilian Ida Smith, a music teacher of Whanganui who had a keen interest in the arts.

Lilian left part of her legacy to the NZSA to ‘assist people aged 35yrs and over to embark upon or further a literary career’.

• The $3,000 award is to assist writers of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, comic / graphic novels and drama for adults and children. Applicants need to be aged 35 years and over, working towards completion of a specific project, and members of the NZSA.
• Applicants are expected to be either in the early stages of their writing career, or to be someone for whom opportunities to fulfill their potential have been limited.

Janet Frame Literary Trust Award

Waikato novelist Catherine Chidgey has been named as the recipient of a Janet Frame Literary Trust Award worth $5,000. Catherine Chidgey is the author of four highly acclaimed novels including her latest book The Wish Child which picked up the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Wish Child has been a bestseller in New Zealand and has just been published in the UK by Chatto & Windus, with US publication to follow in 2018.

See here

Commmended in ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize

The judges also commended three other stories: ‘Contributory Negligence’ by Stevi-Lee Alver (New South Wales), ‘The Man I Should Have Married’ by Catherine Chidgey (New Zealand), and ‘The Fog Harvester’ by Marie Gethins (Ireland). The commended authors each receive $850 and their stories will appear in ABR in coming months. A longlist of eighteen stories appears on our website.

Prize short list and details here

Surf’s up!

This year’s Winter Readings returns to
Paekakariki after last year’s successful event, forming
a rebirth of a popular event at the City Gallery
and other venues in Wellington 2003-2008.
Each event featured a tribute to an album or group.
This year’s readings form a tribute to The Beach Boys.

Sunday, 6 August 2017

Poets: Marilyn Duckworth, MaryJane Thomson, Mark Pirie,
Damian Ruth, Michael O’Leary, Mary Maringikura
Campbell and Nelson Wattie (MC).

Venue: St Peter’s Hall, Beach Rd, Paekakariki.
Time: 2-4pm.

Admission to the reading is by koha. Books for
sale from 2.00pm. No EFTPOS. Cash/cheque sales only.

All welcome.

Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop (ESAW) will publish
an anthology of poems by the readers featured to
celebrate the event.

Winter Readings are presented by:

HeadworX Publishers

Paekakariki Community Trust

Poetry Archive Trust

Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop

Would so love to fly down for this! Anybody who wants to write a piece on the event for me to post … feel free! I just can’t break my tight timetable yet.

Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) is excited to host award-winning Australian novelist Charlotte Wood at one of its Writers on Mondays events this month.

Ms Wood will read and discuss her successful fiction and non-fiction work with IIML senior lecturer Emily Perkins at a free event at Te Papa at 12.15pm on Monday 24 July. Ms Wood will also conduct a master class at the IIML for creative writing students on the Master of Arts and PhD programmes.

“This is one hell of a novel,” “inspired, powerful,” and “masterful” are some of the accolades for Ms Wood’s most recent book, The Natural Way of Things, which won the 2016 Stella Prize, the 2016 Indie Book of the Year and Novel of the Year, and was joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. In this allegorical and disturbingly true novel, young women find themselves brutally imprisoned in the desert, where they soon discover the sex scandals with powerful men that connect them, as well as the depth of their crisis.

The Australian newspaper has described Ms Wood as “one of our most original and provocative writers”. She is the author of five novels and two books of non-fiction, including Animal People, The Children and The Writer’s Room—a recent collection of interviews with writers about their work. Of this book, critic Geordie Williamson wrote: ‘’For writers, an indispensable resource; for readers, a pure pleasure.”

In 2016 Ms Wood was named the Charles Perkins Centre’s inaugural Writer in Residence at the University of Sydney.

“Charlotte Wood is a thrilling writer whose work always pushes into new territory, full-heartedly examining the joy and suffering of life,” says Emily Perkins. “She’s published on a great range of themes, from family dynamics to cooking to misogyny, and has earned deserved comparisons to Elena Ferrante and Margaret Atwood along the way. Like those writers, she is equally well-loved and critically acclaimed, and we are delighted that Wellington audiences will have this opportunity to experience, in person, Charlotte’s insights on writing and the wider world.”

The Writers on Mondays programme began this week and the full programme is available on the IIML website:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/modernletters/about/events/writers-mondays

What: Charlotte Wood at Writers on Mondays
When: 12.15pm, Monday 24 July
Where: Te Papa, Wellington
Entry is free.
For more information contact Emily Perkins on 04-463 6905 or emily.perkins@vuw.ac.nz.

A new play by Naomi Bartley, Te Waka Huia, directed by Chris Molloy, that will be playing its first shows at Te Pou (44a Portage Road, New Lynn – remember to go round the back for the entrance!) at 8pm on Thurs 17th, Fri 18th and Sat 19th August. I’ve been working with Naomi and Chris for the last 3/4 years on the play as dramaturge. We’re going to be taking it later in September to Mangere, Maungaturoto, Wangarei, Kerikeri, Rawene and Helensville. But Te Pu might be the best opportunity if you’re in Auckland. So, do come along. Running time will be c.75mins, so not a late evening.

Tickets from iticket,co,nz $20/$15