Category Archives: Uncategorized

LitCrawlcomes back to Wellington like a juicy box of chocolates I see

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LitCrawl is three nights of Literary Goodness. Each night is different, and every one is a juicy box of chocolates. Artists include: The Pandhandlers (as seen in Writing Tunes & Playing Poetry in last year’s LitCrawl), Bill Manhire, Robert Easting, Sarah Webster, Hera Lindsay Bird, Tim Corballis, The Empire City, Chris Price, Ken Arkind. Plus more.

When: Thurs 3, Fri 4 & Sat 5 March
Where: Potocki Paterson Art Gallery, Level 1, 41 – 47 Dixon St
Tickets: Get them! At the Fringe site here. Doorsales available if there’s room left.

 

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Poetry and the Transit of Venus: a NZ – German collaboration

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‘Come on, let’s push the inflatable out

on the night’s wide waters, see

how far it goes.’

Chris Price from ‘Venera’

 

Three German poets came to view the transit of Venus with three New Zealand poets at Uawa/ Tolaga Bay on June 6th 2012.

They observed the black dot. They wrote poems.

In the same year they met in Germany and translated a selection of each other’s poems  before performing together at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Victoria University Press has just published a beautiful edition of the poems, in both English and German, with images, notes and interviews.

The poets:

Hinemoana Baker, Glenn Colquhoun, Chris Price

Uwe Kolbe, Brigitte Oleschinski, Ulrike Almut Sandig

 

It is as though poetry is the inflatable that six poets pushed out into the ‘night’s wide waters’ of writing; into the passage of the black dot, the thought of Cook’s eye trained all those centuries back, into the little repetitions of stone or buttercup or light.

As you might expect no poem cluster is the same.

Each lift and slip of the inflatable is as much a lift and slip for the reader as it is the writer. A voyage of discovery, in a way.

I especially loved the way the poems took me back to that once-in-a-lifetime experience. How to make poetry of such things?

I was also drawn to the pairings of poets and the way they translated each other’s work.

As the ever enthusiastic Rick Stein says: There should be more of this. What other projects can we invent that bring poets together in such fertile ways?

 

The poems are simply and intricately addictive. Congratulations and thank you VUP! The book is a little gem.

 

VUP page

 

Hinemoana Baker is a Wellington poet, musician and teacher. She is the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer in Residence in 2015–16.

Urike Almut Sandig is a Berlin poet who works with various composers and musicians. She has received numerous awards and scholarships, most recently a scholarship from the Berlin Senate.

Glenn Colquhoun is a poet, children’s writer, and GP. In 2014 he represented New Zealand on the Commonwealth Poets United poetry project which celebrated the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Uwe Kolbe is a poet, translator and lecturer who lives in Hamburg. He has received many prizes and awards, most recently the Heinrich Mann Prize from the Academy of the Arts in Berlin, and the Meran Poetry Award.

Brigitte Oleschinski is a Berlin poet, essayist and performer. She received the prestigious Peter-Huchel-Preis in 1998. She is best known for her poetry collections Mental Heat Control (1990), Your Passport is Not Guilty (1997) and Geisterströmung (2004).

Chris Price is a Wellington poet, nonfiction writer, musician and teacher. Her most recent poetry collection is Beside Herself (2016).

 

 

 

 

2016 Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement: call for nominations

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Time to nominate a poet. Last year it was the fabulous Bernadette Hall.

 

Don’t miss your opportunity to nominate your pick of our finest writers for the 2016 Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement.

Every year, New Zealanders are invited to nominate writers who have made a significant contribution to New Zealand literature in the categories of non-fiction, poetry or fiction. $60,000 is awarded in each genre.

New Zealand writers are also able to nominate themselves for the awards.

The nominations are assessed by an expert literary panel and recommendations forwarded to the Arts Council of Creative New Zealand for approval, with the awards presented in a formal ceremony.

In 2015, Roger Hall was awarded for Fiction; Bernadette Hall for Poetry and Dame Joan Metge for Non-Fiction.  See the full list of winners here

To nominate a writer

Nominations close on Friday, 19 May at 5pm.

 

Previous poets:

Bernadette Hall (2015)
Ian Wedde (2014)
Michele Leggott (2013)
Sam Hunt (2012)
Peter Bland (2011)
Cilla McQueen (2010)
Brian Turner (2009)
Elizabeth Smither (2008)
Bill Manhire (2007)
Vincent O’Sullivan (2006)
Alistair Te Ariki Campbell (2005)
Kevin Ireland (2004)
Hone Tuwhare (2003)

 

A new writers festival like no other: Ruapehu Writers Festival, Ōhakune, 17–20 March 2016

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Ruapehu image with logo low-res

 

Tickets are on sale now for the country’s newest, and quirkiest, writers festival, to be held in Ōhakune in March. And even if you can’t make it, you can still be involved by donating to its crowdfunding campaign.

 

A pony ride with a popular children’s author, a literary waterfall walk, poets on bikes and a venue like something out of Twin Peaks: this doesn’t sound like the average writers festival. But then the first ever Ruapehu Writers Festival, which will be held in Ōhakune on 17–20 March, is not an average writers festival.

Locals and visitors alike will be able to enjoy a long weekend of events – including readings, panel discussions, workshops, sessions for children and a poetry slam – featuring 40 New Zealand writers, from the well-known to the up-and-coming. Tickets and season passes are on sale now, and a Boosted crowdfunding campaign to support the festival is running until the end of February.

Festival sessions include a Friday night lecture by award-winning novelist Elizabeth Knox, a fiction-writing workshop with Auckland writer Sue Orr and the pony ride with Stacy Gregg, the author of the popular Pony Club Secrets series. The setting will be acknowledged in a session about local history with leading non-fiction writer Martin Edmond, who grew up in Ōhakune, and local historian Merrilyn George, and another on the Desert Road.

Other well-known writers who can be heard at the festival include novelists Emily Perkins, Fiona Farrell, Nicky Pellegrino, Jenny Pattrick and Fiona Kidman and poets Paula Green, Harry Ricketts, Tusiata Avia and James Brown. Local writers are also being included, such as novelist and Taumarunui High School teacher Antony Millen, and editors from four of New Zealand’s literary presses will talk about what they look for in new writing. The complete programme is available on the festival website.

 

The festival is the brainchild of poet, lecturer in English literature at Victoria University, and 2016 Katherine Mansfield Fellow Anna Jackson . She and her husband Simon Edmonds, owner of Tuatua café, have a house at Rangataua, next door to Ōhakune. “We realised that Ōhakune, half way between Auckland and Wellington, is the perfect place to hold a writers festival. While many people visit during winter for skiing, it’s at its most beautiful in summer. And the local community has been so enthusiastic about having this event in their town.”

Joining Jackson and Edmonds on the organising committee is poet and Seraph Press publisher Helen Rickerby. She says, “This is going to be an informal and fun festival, and I think the fact that it’s being organised by writers has given it a different approach.” Jackson says she expects readers and writers involved to come out of the session still talking about some of the ideas and books discussed. Readers and writers will also have chances to meet each other and keep talking about ideas on the waterfall walk – free for anyone to come along.

 

The festival will be based at the Powderhorn Chateau, right next to the Ōkahune railway station. “It is a fantastic venue, with large spaces and two decks to relax on in between sessions. Being in an alpine forestry town, the hotel has log walls, which reminds me of the hotel in Twin Peaks – but less creepy,” Rickerby laughs.

Tickets are on sale now, with earlybird season passes at just $90 (until 6 February) and individual sessions at $14, with concessions also available.

 

Edmonds says, “It was important for us to keep prices low, so as many people as possible could afford to come. We have some funding from Creative NZ, but we hope people will support our crowdfunding campaign so we can pay for accommodation and travel for the guest writers, who are generously donating their time.” Because Boosted contributions are eligible for a tax credit, donors will get 33 cents back from every dollar they donate.

 

  • Donate to the Boosted crowdfunding campaign.
  • Find out more about the Ruapehu Writers Festival and buy tickets here.

 

Media:

  • For more information contact Chris Wilson on 04-463 9498, 021 0525 300 or chris.wilson@vuw.ac.nz, or Anna Jackson at anna.jackson@vuw.ac.nz.
  • To interview the organisers or any of the participating writers, email anna.jackson@vuw.ac.nz.
  • Profiles and photos of participating writers are available on the festival website.
  • A media kit, including downloadable logos and images, is available the festival website.

Lynley Edmeades kick starts Dunedin’s Octagon Collective/Dog with Two Tails Poetry Readings as MC this year

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I am looking forward to this book!

Starling goes live at Wellington’s Meow Cafe

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STARLING: A new online literary journal publishing poetry and prose by New Zealand writers under 25 years old. Founded by Louise Wallace & co-edited with Francis Cooke.

ISSUE 1 LIVE: Eight incredible young writers from our first issue will take to the stage to read their work:

Lily Ng / Georgie Johnson / Natalie Morrison / Rebecca Hawkes / Tayi Tibble / Sharon Lam / Phoebe Wright / Claudia Jardine

Come along to celebrate the arrival of Starling at this relaxed all-ages, free event. Bring your mates or bring your kids! Soak up some inspiration for the afternoon. Meow’s delicious coffee and food available for purchase, as well as beer and wine for those 18 and over if it happens to be one of those stellar sunny days Wellington is famous for.

Atlas is a new NZ medical journal seeking creative writing submissions

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Atlas Journal - Connective Tissue, Verhoeff Stain

 

Atlas is a recently established medical literary journal, both online and in print, that hopes to encourage thought and open discussion on the ascientific and creative aspects of medicine and the human body.

The journal takes its name from the atlas, the first vertebra in the body. Supporting the skull, the atlas allows the head to nod yes.

We hope that Atlas will become a space to share questions, appreciation and respect for the body’s structure and complexity. We want to recognise that the body exists within a social and cultural context that differs for each individual. We believe that illness and suffering should be interpreted and treated within this context and it is through stories and metaphor that we can connect with these differences.

We hope to publish our first issue in print in mid 2016 and are currently open for submissions.
For our first issue, we are keeping contributions as open and wide-ranging as possible, accepting all forms of poetry, prose, short stories and non-fiction from writers, doctors, patients and artists.

We also want to provide a space for everyday New Zealanders to share their views on the current state of the health system, to provide a voice for those who feel their needs have fallen through the cracks and for those within the system to share their views.

Here are some topics that have been on our mind recently that we’d be interested in your thoughts on:

architecture, housing and health
the sociology of diagnosis
interactions between gender and the physical body
the emotional and philosophical aspects of surgical intervention
the healthcare needs of indigenous people
the meaning/meaninglessness of suffering and pain
Submissions close at 10pm on the 31st of May 2016. For more information please visit  here.

Joan Fleming has a gorgeous new web site

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Congratulations on this Joan Fleming, poet extraordinaire – your new web site is a treat to navigate.

Web site here.

I especially love the photographs for all the headers and the stockpile of interviews.

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