LGBTQI Writers Festival celebrates the best

February LGBTQI Writers Festival celebrates the best of LGBTQI writing talent

The second annual LGBTQI Writers Festival Samesame but different will be held on 17 & 18 February at the Auckland University of Technology.

The brainchild of one New Zealand’s most celebrated gay writers Peter Wells, Samesame but different promises to be much more than a literary festival.

“As LGBTQI people, we have made astonishing gains in the past 30 years. Since marriage equality it seemed we were finally regular members of society,” says Peter Wells

“Yet increasingly chill winds are blowing our way. The bombing in the Orlando LGBT nightclub in the United States was a shock. Since then we have had Brexit and Trump’s election unleashing intolerance against migrants, LGBT people and people of colour among many others.

“Samesame but different is therefore an exercise in increasing tolerance and celebrating diversity. We are brining LGBTQI voices in from the periphery and making them the centre of cultural discussion for a week-end.”

This year we have expanded the festival has been expanded to include writers both from New Zealand and overseas.

“During the past 12 months, talented local LGBTQI writers have published for the first time, often to great critical acclaim, while writers abroad continue to give voice to the lives and concerns of queer people everywhere,” Peter Wells says.

Some highlights from the programme:

• A conversation with Benjamin Law, best known in Australia as the author of the hilarious television series Family Law, which looks at a Chinese-Australian family through the lens of a theatre-struck gay son with a totally inappropriate mum.

• Shortland St - Producer Maxine Fleming, trans actor Tash Keddy , storyliner and one-time Shortie Street star Harry Dickinson, plus trans scriptwriter Cole Meyers share their journey with actor and casting director Andrea Kelland

• Ngahuia Te Awekotuku: Manu Ngangahu (female warrior) Ngahuia Te Awekotuku’s openness about being lesbian in the early 1970s was one catalyst for the gay liberation movement in Aotearoa New Zealand. Hear her in conversation with Aorewa McLeod.

Ends

© Scoop Media