Category: 2017

Rata Gordon is a poet, creative facilitator, and dance and drama teacher. Her poems have been published in many literary journals, this year in Best New Zealand Poems, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, Sport, Atlanta Review, Brief, and Geometry. She lives on Waiheke Island.   By Rata I was born and the world was messy Illumination…

Olivia Aroha Giles, who lives in Ōtaki, is a contemporary Māori writer and artist. She is of Kahungunu, Raukawa, Te Ati Awa, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Kuia, and Scottish and Irish descent. She has an amazing whānau who inspire her art. She writes novels about contemporary life in Aotearoa, and writes and illustrates children’s books.…

Justine Kingdon loves words, dance, song, her three children and artistic collaboration with her beloved muses. She is working, rather slowly, on two books, and may be an accidental feminist. She sent this poem, with a letter, to Brian Tamaki in response to his claims about earthquakes. In the letter,…

Helen Vivienne Fletcher is a spoken-word poet, playwright and children’s author from Wellington. Before becoming a full-time writer and creative-writing tutor, she worked in a number of roles, including: elf, phone counsellor, teaching people to knit without using needles, youth support worker and professional screamer. Most of all, Helen just…

an interview with Helen Heath by Johanna Knox   Several of your poems begin with ‘The truth about …’, What was your thinking behind that?   Mark Twain said: ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.’  (Following the Equator,…

Rata Gordon   I should say something that I mean like not a lie. I shouldn’t make faces that are masks. I should ask my small intestine what is really going on and I should dish that up on my face and serve it to you with chopsticks.   Read…

Alison Glenny taught short fiction and non-fiction online at Whitireia from 2010–12. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University and recently completed a postgraduate certificate in Antarctic Studies. These prose fragments are from a collection called The Farewell Tourist, and were written in a tent on the…

Johanna Knox still remembers the first time it occurred to her to lie: she was four and wearing her best dress – all ready to go out. While she waited, she asked her dad if she could help him with house-painting, as it looked a lot of fun. He said,…

Jackson Nieuwland likes seagulls. They are the editor of LEFT and co-founder of Food Court. Their novel Foursquare is forthcoming from VUP in 2018. Please give them a job.   An interview with Jackson by Jackson Nieuwland You don’t like taking about yourself

a self interview Jackson Nieuwland   Is it wrong, when asked to interview a writer for a publication, to interview yourself? Yes.   Then why are you doing it? I’m not. You are.   Okay, fine. Why am I doing it? After you began your first interview for the publication,…