James Brown

Phone: 04 463 6854
Fax: 04 463 6865
Email: modernletters@vuw.ac.nz

James convenes the CREW 253 Poetry | He Rotarota workshop.

About

James Brown's six poetry collections – Go Round Power Please (winner of the Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry Award), Lemon, Favourite Monsters, The Year of the Bicycle, Warm Auditorium and, most recently, Floods Another Chamber (2017) – are all published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. His Selected Poems was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2020 and he has a new collection forthcoming in 2022.

His poetry is widely anthologised, including in numerous editions of Best New Zealand Poems. James is also a former editor of the literary magazine Sport, the author behind the non-fiction booklet Instructions for Poetry Readings, editor of The Nature of Things: Poems from the New Zealand Landscape (Craig Potton Publishing, 2005) and of Best New Zealand Poems 2008.

His three early reader books, My New Zealand ABC Book, My New Zealand Colours Book, and My New Zealand 123 Book (Te Papa Press, 2014), were among the children's books selected by author Kate De Goldi in 2018 as a gift to the newborn Prince Louis of Cambridge from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. He has also written English versions of several children's books by the Belgian author and illustrator Leo Timmers for Gecko Press.

James has been the recipient of several fellowships including the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship, the Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary and Writer in Residence Fellowships at Canterbury University and Victoria University of Wellington. He has been a finalist in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards three times. He has a BA in English from Massey University with Honours from Victoria University of Wellington, and works as a freelance writer and editor.

Course information

Read more about CREW 253 Poetry Workshop | He Rotarota, including timetable and fee information and a downloadable course flier.