Writers on Mondays
Writers on Mondays
Just over fifty poets, playwrights, novelists, non-fiction writers and filmmakers from New Zealand, Ireland and Australia will take part in the free Writers on Mondays series starting on 17 July and running every Monday from 1-2 pm at City Gallery Wellington until 2 October.
Chris Price, who co-ordinates the annual series presented by Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters, says, “It’s a great opportunity to find out what our emerging and established writers are up to, with a few international surprises thrown in for good measure. Writers on Mondays offers up-to-the-minute reports from the front lines of literature.”
On 17 July poetry is celebrated as 11 prominent Wellington poets read work from the anthology Best New Zealand Poems 05 in the run-up to Montana National Poetry Day. The reading is chaired by the Institute’s Director, Professor Bill Manhire, whose collection, Lifted, is shortlisted for this year’s Montana Poetry Award. On 24 July Aucklander Wystan Curnow talks art and poetry with Mark Amery.
The focus turns to film on 31 July as Taika Waititi and Loren Horsley preview their upcoming feature, Eagle vs Shark. Then in August audiences will be transported back in time for the literature of ‘Maoriland’. Other August events feature Irish professor of physics and poet Iggy McGovern, Victoria University Writer in Residence Bernadette Hall and Bluff poet Cilla McQueen.
September’s events allow audiences a look into the literary crystal ball, showcasing up-and-coming talent from the Institute’s Master of Arts in Creative Writing, and Writers on Mondays concludes on 2 October with two Australian guests, Cath Kenneally and Ken Bolton, who last appeared in Wellington ten years ago at Writers and Readers Week.
Writers on Mondays, Mondays 1-2
pm, City Gallery Wellington, from 17 July. Free admission.
For further information, contact Chris Price on (04) 463
5815 or email chris.price@vuw.ac.nz
Presented by the
International Institute of Modern Letters in partnership
with City Gallery Wellington. Supported by the New Zealand
Poetry Society and Unity Books.
2006 Writers on Mondays programme
17 July Best New Zealand Poems 05
In the
lead-up to Montana National Poetry Day, 11 poets put their
best feet forward at City Gallery Wellington to kick off the
2006 Writers on Mondays series. Michele Amas, Angela
Andrews, Jenny Bornholdt, James Brown, Geoff Cochrane, Mary
Cresswell, Anna Livesey, Stephanie de Montalk, Gregory
O'Brien, Vivienne Plumb and Ian Wedde read work chosen by
editor Andrew Johnston for the anthology of Best New Zealand
Poems 05. The readings are chaired by Professor Bill
Manhire.
24 July Modern Colours: Wystan
Curnow
Art curator and writer Wystan Curnow also features
on the Best New Zealand Poems top-25 hit-list for 2004 and
2005 with work from his recent collection, Modern Colours,
in which he nimbly re-imagines the world of early modernist
painters. He will read from and discuss his work with
Wellington art writer and Playmarket director Mark Amery.
31 July Eagle vs. Shark: Taika Waititi & Loren
Horsley
Taika Waititi has been an actor, comedian,
painter, photographer, writer and, perhaps most famously,
director of the Oscar-nominated short film, Two Cars, One
Night and the internationally acclaimed Tama Tu.
Actor/director Loren Horsley has appeared in The Insiders
Guide to Happiness, The Strip and Kombi Nation, and shares
the writing credit with Waititi for the forthcoming feature
film Eagle vs Shark. They talk about making their debut
feature with filmmaker Lee-Jane Bennion-Nixon.
7
August ‘Maoriland’ revisited: Jane Stafford & Mark
Williams
The literature of Maoriland, as New Zealand was
popularly known from the 1880s to the beginning of the First
World War, remains the ‘black hole’ in New Zealand’s
literary memory. In the 1930s Allen Curnow and Denis Glover
associated the Maoriland writers with sentiment, gentility
and colonial deference, and inhabiting outmoded Victorian
literary forms, while at the same time the business of
settlement sidelined and dispossessed actual Māori. Jane
Stafford and Mark Williams argue for a more complex reading
of our early literature. They are introduced by publisher
Fergus Barrowman.
14 August The King of Suburbia: Iggy
McGovern
Iggy McGovern is an Associate Professor of
physics at Trinity College Dublin, where he researches the
structural and electronic properties of semiconductor
surfaces. He is also a witty, playful poet whose first
collection, The King of Suburbia, appeared in 2005, and was
quickly reprinted. He appears in conversation with Professor
Bill Manhire.
21 August Wind and Fire: Cilla McQueen
Cilla McQueen is a three-time winner of the New Zealand
Book Award for poetry. Her latest work includes a book of
poems, Fire Penny, and a CD (A Wind Harp) that features
McQueen reading a selection of her work backed by Dunedin
musicians The Blue Neutrinos. She flies in from the deep
south to perform and discuss her poetry with Bernadette Hall
(Cilla McQueen is presented in association with the New
Zealand Poetry Society, with the support of Creative New
Zealand).
28 August The Merino Princess:
Bernadette Hall
Bernadette Hall’s selected poems (The
Merino Princess) appeared in 2004, and she is the current
Victoria University/Creative New Zealand Writer in
Residence. The Canterbury poet and playwright appears in
conversation with publisher Fergus Barrowman to discuss
recent projects such as her collaboration with sculptor Llew
Summers on his sometimes controversial Stations of the
Cross, and offers a preview of work-in-progress, including
her gothic romance novella.
4 September The Next
Page (1)
A quartet of new work by writers from Victoria
University’s MA in Creative Writing begins with readings
of fiction, poetry and memoir from Sarah Barnett, Amy Brown,
Pip Desmond, Robert Egan, Rebecca Lancashire, Therese Lloyd,
Michelle O’Shaughnessy, Amanda Samuel, Rachael Schmidt and
Nicholas Stanley. Chair: Damien Wilkins.
11
September The Next Page (2)
The season of emerging
talent continues with another 10 writers for the page: this
week Craig Cliff, Giovanna Fenster, Tom Fitzsimons, Emma
Gallagher, Anna Horsley, Mary Macpherson, Kate Mahony, Lucy
Orbell, Sue Orr and Abby Stewart read, chaired by Professor
Bill Manhire.
18 September Short / Sharp /
Script (1)
Scriptwriting is in the spotlight this week
as professional actors give rehearsed readings from plays by
writers taking the MA (Script) workshop, chaired by Ken
Duncum. Five scripts, one lunch-hour, and always one of the
fastest-moving and most unpredictable events. This session
features work by Veialu Aila-Unsworth, Mike Borgfeldt, Sam
Bradford, Katie Conaglen and Ben Hutchison.
25
September Short / Sharp / Script (2)
This week five
more scripts are given the once-over by the actors and
director. Edwin McRae, Branwen Millar, Rebekah Palmer,
Benedict Reid and Brendon Simpson are the writers whose work
is performed.
2 October Two Australian writers: Ken
Bolton & Cath Kenneally
Ken Bolton and Cath Kenneally
last performed in Wellington at Writers and Readers Week 10
years ago. Since then Cath has continued to work as an arts
broadcaster and has published more poetry and a novel. Ken
Bolton’s energetic output as a poet, art critic,
publisher, and editor continues unabated with Little Esther
Books and Adelaide's Lee Marvin Reading series. Cath and Ken
update us on their work in readings and conversation with
Gregory
O’Brien.
Ends