Category Archives: NZ poetry event

An invitation to Dunedin’s young poets – celebrate National Poetry Day 2015

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from WriteNow:

We want to hear from Dunedin’s talented young poets. All secondary school writers (years 9-13) from Palmerston to Dunedin to Milton are invited to submit poems to the Dunedin Secondary Schools Poetry Competition.

Three poems will be selected to be featured on billboard posters distributed as part of National Poetry Day celebrations to shops, libraries and all Dunedin intermediate and secondary schools.

The three winning poets will each receive a $50 book token from the University Book Shop. In addition each winning poet will have the opportunity to read their work alongside three of New Zealand’s renowned poets – Dunedin’s David Eggleton and Carolyn McCurdie and Wellington’s Hinemoana Baker – as part of Dunedin’s National Poetry Day event on Friday 28 August at the Dunningham Suite, Dunedin Public Library. Winning and highly commended poems will also be published on the website: http://www.writenow.org.nz

Entries will be judged blind by Dunedin poet David Eggleton.

For further comment, contact Sue Wootton on 027 2000 850

WriteNow

Entries close 5pm, Friday 3 July 2015

How to enter and further details available here

Donations are now being sought for IIML’s National School’s Poetry Award 2015.

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Donations are now being sought for IIML’s National School’s Poetry Award 2015.

Set up by Bill Manhire in 2003, this award is a golden opportunity for secondary-school students keen on creative writing.

As Tim Fraser, Hutt International Boys’ School, 2013 runner-up says: ‘The National School’s Poetry Award was something I never thought I could place in but I did it, ever hopeful. Getting in the top ten has much improved my confidence in my own skills. I will definitely continue to create poetry and certainly this Award has been a booster towards my belief in my abilities.’

Margie McLaren, who teaches at Baradene College, is also convinced: ‘The main benefit is the new confidence instilled in the students about the value of poetry in a utilitarian world which does not always attach the significance to poetry that it deserves . . . The Award is an affirmation of the many benefits of working with and celebrating language, and the special ways in which poetry can reflect human experience. The opportunity of entering for the Award has been a very positive and rewarding experience.’

You can donate here.

NZ Flash Fiction Day takes me back to a missing book: the deadline looms

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Years and years ago I bought an anthology called Sudden Fiction and I loved the way the writing fell on the page in bright drops. Were the miniature pieces agonised over and crafted to a sweet and shiny essence or were they a quick and vital shedding of narrative (stream-of-conscious-like)? Tiny. Surprising. Saporous. I don’t remember such details and I can’t find my weather-beaten copy but I do remember the way the anthology sparked my attention.*

Nowadays, look each way and you find Flash Fiction.

Poet Michelle Elvy is a key supporter and writer of Flash Fiction in NZ. Many other NZ poets move between poetry and the lure of flash-fiction territory: Frankie McMillan, Owen Marshall, Mary McCallum, Rachel Fenton, Caoillin Hughes, Elizabeth Welsh, Gail Ingram, James Norcliffe.

 

National Flash Fiction Day is New Zealand’s celebration of the shortest form of fiction writing, on the shortest day of the year.

The 2015 NFFD competition opens Feb 1 – April 30. See the competition page for information and guidelines.

The 2012, 2013 and 2014 competitions were great successes with 300 entries each year. You can find the winners from previous years by clicking on the tabs at the top of the page.

In past years, National Flash Fiction Day has been celebrated with prize-giving ceremonies and presentations by the judges as well as readings in various hotbeds of flash all across Aotearoa.

Events will be posted on the website as they are put together this year.

 

website here

contact: nationalflash@gmail.com

 

 

*Ha! I went online and discovered this:  ‘Here Are 70 of the very best short-short stories of recent years including contributions from such contemporary writers as Raymond Carver, Leonard Michaels and John Updike; a few Modern Masters as Hemingway and Cheever; and an assortment of talented new young writers. Sudden Fiction brilliantly captures the tremendous popularity of this new and distinctly American form.’ The book was published in 1983 so I was living in London. Maybe I left it there. I am sure there were women in it! But I can’t recall.