Schools Writing Festival

Find out about the history and current status of this event.

History

The National Schools Writing Festival was established in 2003 and ran until 2009. Over 200 Year 12 and 13  students interested in writing fiction, poetry and scripts for theatre, film and television came to the Kelburn campus for a weekend of creative writing workshops and seminars with some of New Zealand’s leading writers.

Initially sponsored by Bell Gully and then by New Zealand Post, the Festival was free to attend, and morning tea, lunch and afternoon were provided. For several years, we also offered a low-decile scholarship, awarded by ballot, to cover travel and accommodation expenses to Wellington for three students at a low decile (1-3) school.

Ministry of Education support allowed us to expand the Festival to include sessions and workshops for English teachers as well.

For a number of years, the Festival was held in conjunction with the National Schools Poetry Award, which has continued as an annual event.

Schools Writers Festival 2024

In July 2024, with support of the Office of the Vice Chancellor, we held one-day creative writing festival on-campus for Year 12 and 13 students and teachers in the Wellington region. In addition to IIML academic staff, the participating writers were Ruby Solly, Cassandra Tse, Tamara Tulitua, Anthony Lapwood and Sue Orr.

Some responses from students and staff who attended:

‘This was an enriching day for all of us and I felt very fortunate to be the lucky teacher who had the privilege to accompany my students to this event.’

‘Thank you for the amazing workshop... I really appreciate all of the effort you put into it, and I am pumped to get stuck into those poetry recommendations.’

‘The workshops were amazing, and our girls were buzzing! Thanks again.’

‘The workshop was…a very special time and such a treat to have room for that kind of in-depth discussion and creative endeavour of our own as teachers.’

A workbook of exercises and creative prompts from workshop convenors was created for the event and can be downloaded below.

We hope to build on the success of this one-day event in future, funding dependent. If you would like to support this, please get in touch with our Director Damien Wilkins: damien.wilkins@vuw.a.nz

• pdf197KB Creative writing workbook 2024