Do you have a notebook, laptop or a drawer of poems waiting to be organised and assembled into a chapbook, book, or a series, but you’re not sure how to go about it? In this workshop award-winning poet Mikaela Nyman will share tips to help you shape your pieces into a coherent whole. We will be discussing intention, organising logic, form and format, and look at some practical examples. Participants are encouraged to bring any questions relating to their own work along.

Mikaela Nyman writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction in English and Swedish. She has published two critically acclaimed poetry collections in Swedish, as well as a literary essay with a selection of Helen Heath’s poems in translation. Her second poetry collection was awarded a major Finnish literature prize this year and is nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2024. She is the author of the climate fiction novel Sado (2020) and co-editor of Sista, Stanap Strong! A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology (2021), both published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. Mikaela is also a mentor and manuscript assessor for the NZSA. In 2024, she holds the Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University.