Queenstown writer Jane Bloomfield has spent the year writing the second novel in her Lily Max series for kids aged 8-12 – the first book was a finalist in this year’s NZ Post Children’s Book Awards, and the sequel is even better. But what else does she get up to in that part of the world? Queenstown – it’s boring and lonely and philistine, isn’t it? With nice views though….Here is Jane’s pictorial account of 2016.
Otago ranks fourth in total numbers of writers in New Zealand. Auckland 700, Wellington 300, Canterbury 150, Otago 100. But where the hell are we? Writing alone in sheds? Probably. Most days – the ones with sunshine in them – I wander down to this bench on the boundary of our property.
This secret track drops down to the Shotover river. Seams of ancient bullock trails, pricky briars and blackberries and small stony tailings are scattered about. In high summer, when I’m feeling brave, I let Star take me across to the other side.
In winter, I long for colour. Like a yellow jacket. On the wall. On the waterfront. Of Queenstown Bay. Where funnily enough, poetry is inscribed in soft stone.
A track cirumnavigates Lake Hayes. It’s a brisk 1 hour 55 minute walk. With okay views. You’ll pass blue teals and young patches of heavily netted kowhai battling against generations of rabbits.
Skipper’s Canyon, 22 kms in length, 73 metres down.
Autumn.
UFO clouds!
Farmers call freak snowstorms in spring“lamb killers”.
More Reading
But spring snow melts quickly, and yellow is everywhere….
Lily Max: Slope Style Fashion (Luncheon Sausage Books, $22) by Jane Bloomfield is available in all good bookstores.
The Spinoff Review of Books is brought to you by Unity Books.
Who are the most powerful figures in the new generation of New Zealand literature? The most innovative, the most awarded, the most industrious? A panel of young experts exchanged their views over Snapchat and things like that until they agreed on the top 10.
1 Hera Lindsay Bird
But not just for the 46,000+ views her poem “Keats Is Dead [etc]” gained at the Spinoff, or for the fact her debut, self-titled book of poems was the number one best-seller at Unity stores in Wellington and Auckland. She also stars in the best poetry submission video ever made – and thus beckons a new generation of young writers who New Zealand literature needs like breath.
2 Claire Mabey and Andrew Laking
The royal couple of making fun and exciting literary things happen. Their production company Pirate & Queen does the awesome LitCrawl event in Wellington – the next one is next weekend, November 12-13 – in which all sorts of writers talk, argue, recite, joke and generally blather at special events all over town.
3 Grace Taylor
Co-founded the South Auckland Poets Collective in 2008; co-founded the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Slam in 2011; and in 2013, co-founded Niu Navigations, which is committed to encouraging the publication and performance of Aotearoa and Pacific poetry. Also she does this.
Right now in Iowa, at the international writers programme; she works as the project manager at Manukau Institute of Techhnology arts faculty, and is the author of a book of verse Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick, and a book of short stories, The Tail of the Taniwha.
5 Sophie Rea
Doing all sorts of great stuff with youth poetry in Christchurch – she founded the Faultline Poetry Collective – as well as winning last year’s national Rising Voices competition. She also organised the Speaking Proud queer youth fundraiser at the WORD literary festival; according to festival director Rachael King, “feedback was that lives were saved.”
6 Aaron Hawkins
The guy behind the New Zealand Young Writers Festival, staged in Dunedin; guests at the 2015 and 2016 events read like a who’s who of who’s doing cool, interesting, challenging things these days, such as cartoonist Toby Morris, dramatist Arthur Meek, humorous person Guy Williams, and joint winners of the 2015 Wintec Press Club Best Writer in New Zealand Journalism Award, Jessica McAllen and Alex Casey.
7 Maraea Rakuraku
Maraea (Ngāti Kahungunu, Tūhoe) is a playwright, poet and broadcaster, who won the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Outstanding New Playwright for her first full length play, The Prospect in 2012, and this year took home a haul of three gongs at the Playmarket awards – Best Play by a Māori Writer and Best Play by a Woman Writer, and Best Play, full stop, for her work Tan-Knee.
8 Barnaby Bennett and Emma Johnson
As publishers at the Freerange Press in Christchurch, they released Don’t Dream It’s Over:Reimagining Journalism, a thoughtful, powerful collection of essays on the state and prospects of New Zealand journalism and that. Freerange also published the influential Once in a Lifetime: City-building after Disaster in Christchurch in 2014.
9 Chris Tse
Why are all the best young writers poets or playwrights? Where are the hip young novel-writing gunslingers? The blazingy talented Chis Tse was winner of the best first book of poetry at the 2016 Ockham national book awards (when he went dressed as a black swan). His work has since appeared in the Spinoff.
10 Holly Hunter
Runs the Mimicry literary journal and works as associate editor at Victoria University Press and is sometimes confused with former Green MP and Spinoff reviewer Holly Walker, and commonly mistaken, too, for the actress Holly Hunter, but is neither, and equally she isn’t Hollie Fulbrook from Tiny Ruins, though she does, like Holly Walker, also write for the Spinoff.
