A capital literary season - Writers on Mondays returns
Read or download the full programme.
The perennially popular Writers on Mondays series, presented by Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), returns to Te Papa in mid-July with another stimulating line-up of new fiction, poetry, scriptwriting and nonfiction from the Wellington scene and further afield.
Read or download the full Writers on Mondays 2014 programme.
This year's special international guest is novelist, publisher, translator, poet and anthologist, Michael Schmidt. Schmidt's illustrious career includes founding Carcanet Press and editing world-class literary journal PN Review. With poet, painter and essayist Greg O'Brien, Schmidt will discuss his latest work, a brilliant and compendious history of fiction called simply The Novel: A Biography. Schmidt appears on 1 September, with support from the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation at Victoria University.
The programme kicks off on 14 July with Auckland-based novelist and journalist Tim Wilson, who will read from his raucous new satirical novel News Pigs, and interrogate New Zealand's self-image as Plucky Little Country with fellow broadcaster and writer Richard Langston, in what promises to be a very lively session.
The following week, the audience gets the opportunity to hear three new poets on the scene – Maria McMillan, Rachel O'Neill and Marty Smith – in readings and discussion about their recent stunning debut collections of poetry.
On July 28, literary all-rounder and much-admired poet Geoff Cochrane joins publisher Fergus Barrowman in conversation about Astonished Dice, a brand new collection of Cochrane's best short stories.
At the start of August, Victoria University/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence Hinemoana Baker will share her experiences of the residency, read from her new book of poems, and reveal a little of her work in progress, a moving personal account of involuntary childlessness and her father's traumatic childhood in a Nelson orphanage.
On 11 August, historians Kirstie Ross and Associate Professor Kate Hunter share some of the treasures they discovered while writing Holding on to Home, an account of New Zealanders' experience of World War I told through objects that act as emotional touchstones to bring this distant event back into our hands.
To celebrate National Poetry Day, nine poets will read work selected for the 2013 edition of Best New Zealand Poems introduced by the anthology's editors, Professors Jane Stafford and Mark Williams.
Returning to fiction, Dominion Post columnist and Commonwealth Writers' Best First Book Prize winner Craig Cliff and Ngā Kupu Ora award winner Tina Makereti talk about writing into the spaces between magic, realism and history in their acclaimed novels The Mannequin Makers and Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings.
September kicks off with man of letters Michael Schmidt discussing his many literary lives. Then we showcase the emerging new voices from the IIML's MA in Creative Writing Programme. The penultimate session features seasoned scriptwriters Peter Cox, Kelly Marshall and Dave Armstrong talking about the highs and lows of the scriptwriting life; and the 2014 series rounds off with a trio of writers discussing newly released memoirs of home, exile and pain: Ian Wedde (The Grass Catcher), Helena Wísniewska Brow (Give Us This Day) and Stephanie de Montalk (How Does it Hurt?).
As Damien Wilkins, Director of IIML, says, 'The wonderful combination of new voices and established writers makes this series a brilliant fixture on the literary calendar.'
Writers on Mondays events run from 12.15–1.15pm, 14 July – 30 September at Te Papa, The Marae, Level 4, Te Papa.
Admission is free, all are welcome. Please note that no food may be taken onto the Te Papa marae.
Writers on Mondays is presented by Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and National Poetry Day. Michael Schmidt's visit is funded by the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation at Victoria University.
For further information contact Chris Price, Senior Lecturer, IIML, on 04-463 6854 or chris.price@vuw.ac.nz