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Social issues a major theme for National Poetry Day celebrations
Climate change and the plight of refugees are the focus of some of the 150+ events in this year’s Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day, taking place on Friday August 23. Our annual celebration of writing and reading poetry embraces both the personal and political in a dynamic programme of events and competitions nationwide – from […]
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Hamilton Book Month happening again this August
It’s August and Hamilton Book Month is underway again with the biggest ever programme with 21 different events and a grand total of 35 (including repeats) across August at various Hamilton venues. Almost all events are free with only four having a charge. Co-organiser Catherine Wallace says ‘There’s so many authors we wanted to include […]
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Eye-catching Book on Samoan Tattooing Sweeps the Board at the PANZ Book Design Awards
A beautifully designed and richly illustrated retelling of the unique and powerful history of S?moan tattooing was the big winner at the 2019 PANZ Book Design Awards. Tatau: A History of S?moan Tattooing by Sean Mallon and Sébastien Galliot (Te Papa Press), designed by Arch MacDonnell (Inhouse Design) received the overall accolade of the Gerard Reid […]
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Space to breathe
22 Jul 2019 The latest offering of grants and awards in one of our key creative industries is rightly seen as something to boast about. [In partnership with NZSA and CLNZ] There’s less than a week for would-be or established writers in New Zealand to apply for $20,000 worth of research grants on offer. From August 2 there’s […]
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Auckland Writers Festival Continues Its Record-Breaking Run
People of all ages flocked to the 2019 Auckland Writers Festival this week, which broke its previous attendance record with more than 82,000 seats filled across seven days of tremendous conversations, inspiring performances and theatres filled with laughter at venues throughout the city’s centre. The Festival, which has seen year-on-year growth in the last eight […]
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OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS 2019 WINNERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT
OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS 2019 WINNERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT ‘Urgently Relevant’ Novel Wins Country’s Richest Literary Award Dame Fiona Kidman has won this year’s $53,000 Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her novel, This Mortal Boy, a work described by the judges as ‘moving, memorable, authentic and urgently relevant to […]
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National Poetry Day 2019
https://youtu.be/yICpsit29lw Unleashing the unifying power of poetry in New Zealand communities On Friday 23 August 2019, Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day will once again give New Zealanders the opportunity to come together and unleash the power of poetry in their own communities. Last year, a massive 150 events took place nationwide – double that of […]
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A wave of women’s voices carry Best New Zealand Poems
The latest edition of the online anthology Best New Zealand Poems is now live, featuring 25 poems chosen by Dunedin-based novelist, poet, playwright, and non-fiction author Fiona Farrell. The International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University of Wellington has published the anthology annually since 2001, with support from Creative New Zealand. While […]
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Auckland Writers Festival 2019 programme
The Prime Minister, Jeff Tweedy, Sir Antony Beevor among Stellar 2019 Auckland Writers Festival Line-up The 20th Auckland Writers Festival programme launches today, revealing a line-up of more than 200 events featuring over 230 globally acclaimed public intellectuals and much-loved literary stars offering conversation, laughter, ideas and inspiration for audiences of all ages from 13 […]
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Winners of the 2018 NEW VOICES – Emerging Poets Competition Announced
Winners of the 2018 NEW VOICES – Emerging Poets Competition Announced Gillian Roach is this year’s winner of the NEW VOICES – Emerging Poets Competition. Post-graduate student of the Masters in Creative Writing, AUT. Roach is an Auckland poet and fiction writer who recently completed the Masters In Creative Writing course at AUT. She studied […]
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New survey shows continued drop in Kiwis reading – Annual NZ Book Council report
442,600 adult New Zealanders didn’t read a book in the past year, according to new research out today. Books are competing with television and computer screens for our leisure time, and 45-54 year olds had the lowest percentage reading of any age group. The study also found that fewer Kiwi men are reading books. […]
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National Schools Poetry Award celebrates New Zealand’s poets of the future
A year 13 student at Wellington’s Queen Margaret College has won first place in the 2018 International Institute of Modern Letters’ (IIML) National Schools Poetry Award, with her poem ‘Vignettes’. Ilena Shadbolt receives a prize of $500 and the opportunity to attend a poetry masterclass with poets James Brown and Hera Lindsay Bird at the […]
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