The Going West Books and Writers Festival celebrates 20 years with a line-up of outstanding home-grown authors, playwrights and songwriters

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I am delighted to be chairing a poetry session with Kerry Hines and Leilani Tamu.

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The Going West Books and Writers Festival celebrates 20 years with a line-up of outstanding home-grown authors, playwrights and songwriters in a packed programme of events this September.

Featuring enthralling new non-fiction by David Slack, Roger Horrocks, and Geoff Chapple; new novels from Greg McGee, Stephanie Johnson and Anna Smaill and poetry by Harry Ricketts and Leilani Tamu, audiences will also be treated to an appearance from Rachel Barrowman talking about her just-published biography on Maurice Gee and biographer Lucy Treep offers a tantalising insight into the life of Maurice Shadbolt.

Festival founder and director Murray Gray says this year’s writers will become part of the considerable legacy of conversations built up over two decades.

Going West Festival audiences have been treated over the years to extraordinary events featuring such literary luminaries as Allen Curnow, Michael King, Nigel Cox, Ian Wedde, Anne Salmond, Lauris Edmond, Maurice Gee and Maurice Shadbolt.

The festival is named after its Patron, Maurice Gee’s novel Going West. “I’ve been to many writing festivals but none as relaxed and friendly as the Going West…Long may it continue,” says Gee.

Gray adds that this year’s festival sees some landmark announcements.

“I am delighted to say the Going West Trust,  in association with the Waitakere Ranges Local Board, will be offering a new creative residency from 2017, in Maurice Shadbolt’s home of some 40 years, here in Titirangi.

“The house has plenty of material for writers to draw on. Shadbolt loved a party, and there were many in his home. He had a colourful personality and lived here through four marriages.  We are so pleased the Waitakere Ranges Local Board has entrusted us with the lease of this culturally valuable property,” says Gray.

The Festival also announces a partnership with Auckland’s  new home for Māori theatre, Te Pou who will be holding  a Koanga (Spring) Festival offering a range of performances, writing workshops and readings and culminating in a community Whānau Day of storytelling on Saturday 12 September at the theatre’s home 44A Portage Road, New Lynn.

Te Pou will present a development season of The Great American Scream by award-winning playwright Albert Belz in the Going West Festival from 17-19 September.

Going West Festival welcomes lauded theatre work, Sister Anzac, by Geoff Allen,  which runs from 3-6 September at Te Pou Theatre in New Lynn.

Stand-up poets have time to sharpen their acts before the Going West Poetry Slam takes place on 12 September. Directed by Doug Poole, this will be a fun, fast-paced evening featuring some of the country’s best known bards. Handsome cash prizes to be won.

Stephanie Johnson, who made her first festival appearance, with an early  novel at the first Going West Festival in 1996, will be the Sir Graeme Douglas Orator this year. This will be part of the festival weekend’s opening night celebrations on Friday 11 September.

The full Going West Books and Writers Festival programme will be online at www.goingwestfest.co.nz from July 9. For tickets go to: www.iticket.co.nz

The Festival is grateful for support from the Waitakere Ranges Local Board, Creative New Zealand, The Trusts Community Foundation, Foundation North and the Douglas family Trust.

Key dates:

9 July                                     Going West Books and Writers Festival LAUNCH

TICKETS ON SALE

11- 13 September            Going West Books and Writers Literary Weekend. Titirangi War Memorial Hall, 500 south Titirangi Rd, Titirangi

12 September                   Going West Poetry Slam. Titirangi War Memorial Hall, 500 south Titirangi Rd, Titirangi

www.goingwestfest.co.nz                           www.facebook.com/goingwestfest

WRITERS ON MONDAYS In the company of a master: Vincent O’Sullivan

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WRITERS ON MONDAYS

In the company of a master: Vincent O’Sullivan

We kick off our 2015 programme in grand style with one of New Zealand’s finest. Poet Laureate Vincent O’Sullivan’s impressive writing career includes poetry, biography, novels, plays and short stories. His recent publication Being Here is the first to survey the entire span of O’Sullivan’s poetry, from 1973’s Bearings to new poems first published in this volume. Join us as O’Sullivan and longtime publisher and friend Fergus Barrowman take a journey back through an illustrious writing career, discussing favourite themes and preoccupations, recent work, and the public role of poetry.

Writers on Mondays is presented with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa with support from National Poetry Day and Circa Theatre.

 

DATE:  Monday 13 July

TIME:   12.15-1.15pm

VENUE: Te Papa Marae, Level 4, Te Papa
(Please note that no food may  be taken onto the Marae).

Welcome back the NZ Book Awards with a gift for fiction

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New Zealand Book Awards Return with Major Fiction Prize

After a 12-month hiatus, the country’s premier book awards will return in 2016 with a new structure, a new judging process and a significant, annual fiction prize of $50,000.

The New Zealand Book Awards winners will be announced at an event during the country’s largest literary gathering – the Auckland Writers Festival – in May 2016.

The New Zealand Book Awards Trust chair, Nicola Legat, says she is delighted to announce the changes, and in particular the major fiction award, which is provided by the Acorn Foundation, through the generosity of one of its donors.

“It creates a tremendous and lasting literary legacy. The sum of $50,000 will be awarded to the top fiction work annually, in perpetuity. This will make a difference not only to the receiving writer, but also to the literary fabric of New Zealand. It is a huge gift for us all.”

The Acorn Foundation is a Western Bay of Plenty-based community foundation that encourages people to leave bequests in their wills, or gifts during their lifetimes.

Acorn Foundation’s Operation’s Manager, Margot McCool, says it is humbling to witness such generosity.

“Since 2003 we have been encouraging generosity, so that people who really care about their community can fulfil their wish of enabling organisations and causes they believe in. We are so pleased that this award will make such a difference to New Zealand novelists’ careers,” says Mrs McCool.

In addition to an annual fiction winner, there will be a poetry, a general non-fiction and an illustrated non-fiction winner and, should there be sufficient entries, a Māori language award. The three Best First Book Awards will also continue.

Ms Legat added that including the awards in the Auckland Writers Festival programme ensures they reach more people.

“The New Zealand Book Awards will be the first public event in the festival’s line-up. With the festival growing exponentially year-on-year (55 percent in 2014 and a further 17 percent in 2015), we are taking New Zealand writers to a huge reading audience.”

Auckland Writers Festival director Anne O’Brien says embracing the New Zealand Book Awards was a natural fit.

“The festival is committed to sharing a love of books and reading and to championing and supporting New Zealand writers through exposure to thousands of festival-goers each year.  The New Zealand Book Awards are a celebration of writing excellence and we’re delighted to offer them a home in the festival’s programme,” says Ms O’Brien.

The four main categories will be judged by specialist judges, three per category, plus a Maori language adviser for the Maori language awards.  The judges will select a long list of around eight books in each category. It will be announced in November 2015.

The shortlist of four books in each of the categories will be announced in early March 2016.

“The changes to the judging process are a direct result of the consultation process carried out by the Book Awards Trust in 2014. Having fewer books for each judge to read, and having more specialist depth in each genre, will allow a more detailed examination of the works,” says Ms Legat.

The call for entries in the awards is scheduled for August 1 this year.

For interview opportunities and further information please contact: Penny Hartill, director, hPR 09 445 7525, 021 721 424, penny@hartillpr.co.nz

Full article go here

Dunedin’s Writers Salon

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Please join us for our next
Writers Salon

Please join us for our next Writers Salon

Monday July 6th, 2015
The Thistle Café and Bar, 23 The Octagon

Featured writers:

Breton Dukes
reading from his novel in progress, Betty Dean

Emma Neale
reading from ‘The How Do We Begin,’ a prose/poetry extract from a longer work, Billy Bird
(published in Landfall 229)

Neville Peat
reading an essay from Wild Central, and a narrative from Coasting: The Sea Lion and the Lark

All welcome

Please come at 6.00 pm if wish to eat.
Readings start at 7.00 pm.

A shameless plug for poetry

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My book The Letter Box Cat and other poems is a finalist — most unusual to have poetry there. So this seems like a golden opportunity to make a national show of children’s hands for poetry. Do get children to vote! (the other books are excellent too, I have to say!). So few children’s poetry books get published here. Bottom of rung in my view.

Only children can vote.

2015 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

Children’s Choice 

Would you like to choose the winners in the 2015 New Zealand Children and Young Adults Book Awards?

 

Be part of the Children’s Choice voting and have your chance to vote for the New Zealand books you think are the best.

Children and teenagers across the country have been busy reading and reviewing their favourites amongst all the New Zealand books entered in the 2015 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Their votes created a list of 20 books they think are the best.

So get voting: we want to know what New Zealand kids think. Choose your favourite in the Top 5 in each category that’s relevant to your age group. (We have adult judges separately deciding on the overall winners, but we also want to know what kids think are the best books.)

Everyone kid who votes (you’ll need to be 18 years old or under) will be in the draw to win some books for yourself and for your school. On the second page we will ask you questions to help us contact you via your school if you win. If you are unsure about anything ask mum or dad or your teacher to help you.

Voting closes at 12 noon on Friday, 31 July.

So vote now and tell your friends to vote too. Just click here to vote!

Voting button

Congratulations to Flash Fiction Day winners

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Congratulations to Frankie McMillan of Christchurch

and Leanne Radojkovich of Auckland

who took top honours in this year’s competition!

And to all Highly Commended writers and

Regional Prize winners, too, posted on

the NFFD Winners page, along with judges’ comments.

All sixteen long-listed stories from this year’s competition will be published in a special winter edition of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction.

THANK YOU! 

Special thanks to Owen Marshall and Fiona Kidman for so generously sharing their time and wisdom.

Thanks to the NZ Society of Authors branches who support the Regional Awards. A great deal of individual effort has gone into organising the gifts and awards that the branches donate, and it’s thanks to branch chairs and members that this part of NFFD is a growing success.
Thanks to Designlab in Auckland for our logo and banner images. We’re handsome and shiny because of you!

Thanks to the bookshops around NZ who support our efforts — Jason Books in Auckland, Unity Books in Wellington, University Bookshop in Dunedinand Scorpio Books in Christchurch.

And thanks, finally but hugely, to our event organisers, volunteers, proxy readers and MCs — NFFD would be nothing without you! Here’s to this year’s success, and to you!

Margaret Cahill

Maryrose Doull 

James George

Eileen Merriman

Nod Ghosh

Trisha Hanifin

Tim Heath

Katherine Honeyman

Brindi Joy

Graeme Lay

James Norcliffe

Catherine Robertson

Morrin Rout

Owen Scott

Rebecca Styles

Sian Williams

Ana Worner

Morgan Bach’s launch at Wellington’s award-winning Unity Books -Would love to be there for this! Can’t wait to read it

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Victoria University Press warmly invites to the launch of

Some of Us Eat the Seeds
by Morgan Bach

6pm–7.30pm on Thursday 16 July
at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington.

About Some of Us Eat the Seeds:
Morgan Bach weaves a line between waking life and the unstable dreamworld beneath, disorienting and reorienting us from moment to moment. In poems of childhood, family, travel and relationships, she responds to the ache and sometimes horror of life in a voice that is restless and witty, bold and sharp-edged.

‘It’s ordinary and extraordinary. It’s the kind of arrival that delights me.’ – Bernadette Hall

Simon Armitage wins Oxford Professor of Poetry election

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from The Guardian

Popular British poet selected for prestigious post ahead of strong field including Wole Soyinka

Simon Armitage: keen to discuss ‘poetry’s relationship with the civilian world’.
Simon Armitage: keen to discuss ‘poetry’s relationship with the civilian world’. Photograph: Gareth Phillips for the Guardian

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The British poet Simon Armitage has seen off an international field to be chosen as Oxford’s latest professor of poetry.

Speaking to the Guardian after the announcement, Armitage said he was “delighted and very excited and suitably daunted as well”.

“It’s been such a long process,” he said. “In the time it’s taken we’ve had a general election, Sepp Blatter has come and gone and come again, and we’ve nearly got a new leader of the Labour party.”

He said he would try to give students an insight into “what is occasionally quite a muddy world, and a muddy art form, remembering that the audience are primarily students, and not to see it as a platform for professorial grandstanding”.

“For me, it’s a chance to say something a little bit more contemporary,” he said. “Often it’s been professors talking about previous generations. I feel as if I’d like to bring thing up to date. To look at poetry today, in dialogue with the poetry of the past.”

The award-winning author of more than 12 collections of poetry, Armitage has been hailed by fellow poet Sean O’Brien as “the first poet of serious artistic intent since Philip Larkin to have achieved popularity”. Combining linguistic inventiveness, streetwise flair and contemporary subjects, he has reached an audience far beyond the literary ghetto with poems, novels, translations of medieval verse and scripts for radio and television.

The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, welcomed the announcement, calling Armitage “a fine, vocational poet and a brilliant communicator for the modern age who never forgets the roots and ancestry of poetry”.

for more see here