About the National Schools Writing Festival

Participants in the 2024 Schools Writers Festival.
Participants in the 2024 Schools Writers Festival.

The National Schools Writing Festival was established by our founding Director, Bill Manhire,  in 2003, and held annually from 2005 until 2009.

Over a weekend in August each year, more than 200 Year 12 and 13 students interested in writing fiction, poetry and scripts for theatre, film and television came to the Kelburn campus of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington for a weekend of creative writing workshops and seminars with some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading writers.

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.

Information, writing resources and nomination forms were sent to all eligible secondary schools and made available on our website in February each year the Festival was run. Home-schooled students studying at the equivalent of Yr 12 and 13 could also be privately nominated to attend.

Initially sponsored by Bell Gully and then by New Zealand Post, the Festival was later expanded to include sessions and workshops for upper secondary English teachers, thanks to Ministry of Education support.

For a number of years, the Festival was held in conjunction with the National Schools Poetry Award, which has continued as an annual event. The Award is free to enter and open to Yr 12 and 13 students, or homeschooled equivalent, throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Festival was suspended after 2009 due to loss of sponsorship. While we have not been able to secure ongoing funding to reinstate this annual event, we were able to hold a one-day version on campus in 2024.

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

Festival resources

Each participant received a copy of the current year’s Festival workbook, containing creative writing exercises and prompts.

Festival workshop participants also chose in advance whether to attend a workshop in Writing for the age or Writing for performance, and were given set preparation exercises to complete and bring with them to share.

Each year we invited around 20 practising writers to speak at the festival and/or to coordinate our small-group workshops. We also asked them to provide comments for the festival programme, based on a different prompt each year. For example, in 2005 we asked guest writers to describe a favourite writing exercise, or something they like to do to kickstart a new piece of writing, and explain why they have found it useful.

Below are festival workbooks from 2009 and 2024, a selection of preparation exercises and guest writer's favourite exercises, as well as a sample of work by participating students.