Getting through the hoops – with Siobhan Harvey, Geoff Walker, and Geraldine Warren – WebWorkshop

10am to 12pm, Thursday, 29 October.

There are many awards, grants, residencies, mentorships and competitions available to New Zealand writers, here and overseas but sometimes it can seem really hard to achieve success in this space.

In this panel discussion, Geoff Walker, Geraldine Warren and Siobhan Harvey will share their experience reviewing work for writing competitions, research awards, mentor and assessment programmes for the NZSA and other writer-centric awards and programmes. Participants are encouraged to bring questions. Please note that the session will be focused on how to improve applications and not what opportunities are available (This information is on the NZSA website).

Geoff Walker is active in New Zealand book publishing as a freelance publishing consultant, editor and writer. He is one of New Zealand’s most experienced publishers and editors. Geoff is a former publishing director of Penguin New Zealand, where he was responsible for building Penguin’s local publishing list over a period of several decades. As a consultant Geoff assesses original manuscripts and offers expert advice on writing, rewriting and editing. He also advises on the best way to publish. Geoff regularly participates in NZSA’s mentoring and manuscript assessment services.

Geraldine Warren is Māori Resources & Mātauranga Advisor at Auckland War Memorial Museum. She holds a MLIS (2006) and MCW (2019) from VUW, Wellington. Her mahi at AWMM in various roles have included cataloguer, collection care, research, writing, World War-Pakanga, rare books, manuscripts, whakapapa/family history and deepening information on Wahine Maori. She was lead researcher for the museum for the UNESCO NZ Inscription ‘A Korao no New Zealand’. Other professional writing or contributions includes: Coastwatchers, Early Maori Literacy, ‘Front-page news: a mystery hui’ and ‘Poetry Shelf connections: much-loved comfort book list by 19 New Zealanders’. Geraldine has also participated on AWMM selection panels for the Sir Hugh Kawharu scholarship and Online Cenotaph Stories: Contemporary Reflections Grant.

Siobhan Harvey is a migrant author of five books, including the poetry collection, ‘Cloudboy’ (Otago University Press, 2014), which won New Zealand richest prize for poetry, the Landfall Kathleen Grattan Award. She’s also co-editor of the New Zealand bestseller, ‘Essential New Zealand Poems’ (Penguin Random House, 2014). Her work has been published in ‘Arc’ (Canada), ‘Asian Literary Review’ (Hong Kong), ‘Griffith Review’ (Aus), ‘Segue’ (US), ‘Stand’ (UK), and ‘Structo’ (UK), as well as the anthology ‘Feminist Divine: Voices of Power and Invisibility’ (Cyren US, 2019). She won 2019 Kathleen Grattan Award for a Sequence of Poems, 2019 Robert Burns Poetry Prize, and 2016 Write Well Award (Fiction, US). She was runner-up in the 2011 Landfall Essay Competition and 2015 and 2014 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competitions. The Poetry Archive (UK) holds a ‘Poet’s Page’ devoted to her work.

WEBWORKSHOP ATTENDANCE FEE: NZSA Members – $30. (Non-members – $60)

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NZSA WebWorkshops are hosted on Zoom. Zoom is free to download