Roadwords: a Literary Tour of Southern Towns

Roadwords: a Literary Tour of Southern Towns by Four Award-Winning Writers

Four award-winning authors will read from new work and speak about their passion for writing this October. Calling at Ōamaru, Dunedin, Gore and Te Anau before finishing in Wanaka, the tour will feature informal events to encourage and inspire local readers. Taking part in the tour are Wellington novelist and short story writer, Pip Adam; Dunedin based novelist Laurence Fearnley; Kāpiti fiction and non-fiction writer, Tina Makereti; and Kāpiti fiction writer Lawrence Patchett.

The tour hopes to encourage the experience of high-quality literature in southern communities that are sometimes excluded from major literary festivals and events. As Laurence Fearnley notes: ‘Distance and cost can make it difficult for people from smaller communities to access literary festivals in urban centres like Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. As writers we want to be proactive, tour the south and introduce audiences to new and exciting work.’

‘By holding free events in libraries and public galleries, we hope to create an informal atmosphere where readers and writers from all age-groups and backgrounds can not only hear our work being read but engage in open and stimulating dialogue about the writing process and what it means to be a writer in Aotearoa/New Zealand today.’

The authors met while completing PhDs in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University, in Wellington. ‘The course was supervised by Bill Manhire — a poet with strong Southland connections — so in a way there is a nice symmetry in being able to acknowledge his support and influence on our careers by bringing our work down south.’

All events are free and made possible through the support of Creative New Zealand.

Roadwords Tour dates:

Oamaru Public Library, Thursday 2nd October – 6pm
Dunedin Public Library, Friday 3rd October – 6pm
Eastern Southland Art Gallery, Gore, Saturday 4th October – 4.30pm
Te Anau Public Library, Sunday 5th October – 2pm.
Wanaka Public Library, Tuesday 7th October – 7pm

About the Writers
Pip Adam is author of Everything We Hoped For (VUP) and I’m Working on a Building (VUP) and has received the 2011 NZSA Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book of Fiction and an Arts Foundation of New Zealand New Generation Award in 2012. She teaches creative writing at the IIML and Arohata Women’s Prison and is writing a new novel about the ocean.

Laurence Fearnley is a novelist and non-fiction writer. In 2011 she won the fiction category in the NZ Post New Zealand Book Awards for her novel, The Hut Builder. Her novel, Edwin and Matilda was runner-up in the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Her latest novel Reach will be published by Penguin in late September.

Tina Makereti is the author of Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa and Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings. In 2009 she was the recipient of the Pikihuia Award for Best Short Story in English, and the RSNZ Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing (non-fiction). In 2011 she received the Ngā Kupu Ora Award for Fiction. She is currently the CNZ Randell Cottage Writer in Residence.

Lawrence Patchett is the author of the short-story collection I Got His Blood On Me: Frontier Tales, which was awarded the 2013 NZSA Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book of Fiction. In 2014 he was awarded the Creative New Zealand Todd New Writer’s Bursary, and is currently writing a dystopian adventure novel.

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