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Home , Bernadette Hall, Catherine Chidgey, Chris Price (poet), Craig Cliff, Emma Neale, Janet Frame

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MODERN LETTERS Te P¯utahi Tuhi Auaha o te Ao

Newsletter – 21 November 2011 ISSN: 1178-9441

This is the 175th in a series of occasional newsletters from the Victoria University centre of the International Institute of Modern Letters. For more information about any of the items, please email modernletters.

1. A real e-book ...... 1 2. Making Baby Float ...... 2 3. Bernard Beckett ...... 2 4. A possible sighting? ...... 2 5. A poetry masterclass ...... 3 6. Awards and prizes ...... 3 7. Eric Olsen meets the muse ...... 3 8. The expanding bookshelf...... 4 9. Best Poems ...... 4 10. Peter Campbell RIP ...... 4 11. Gossipy bits ...... 5 12. Tattooed poet at Lembas ...... 5 13. Writing space in downtown ...... 5 14. Recent web reading ...... 5 15. Great lists of our time (1) ...... 6 16. Great lists of our time (2) ...... 8

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1. A real e-book

It's been a while a-coming, but at last it's on its way. The Exercise Book is now at the printers, and will be widely available in December. Big thanks to all our distinguished contributors – their generosity means that any profits from the book will go into the IIML's scholarship fund. We have immortalised them as a Great List later in this newsletter.

We're also about to launch a blog, based around The Exercise Book, which will offer

1 regular thoughts about writing and the teaching of writing. We aim to post a range of exercises from the book itself, but we also have a lot of other stuff stashed away, and we'll be bringing some of that into the light, too. More on this next time - and via our Twitter account.

2. Making Baby Float

The Making Baby Float project finally makes its way into the world with a CD (with bonus DVD) via a launch at St Andrews on the Terrace at 6.00 pm this Thursday.

Here’s more about the launch.

And here’s more about the album and the original show.

And you can see and hear the title track here.

3. Bernard Beckett

We're a little late with the news, though we did tweet it happily a couple of weeks ago: our 2012 Writer in Residence will be the YA author Bernard Beckett. He is best know for his novel Genesis, but is also the author of Falling for Science: Asking the Big Questions (2007), a non-fiction exploration of the relationship between story- telling and science. During the year Bernard will be working on a new novel, Lullaby. We're especially pleased because a) we know he'll be very good company and b) we've always been very proud of our Children's Writing workshop, led by Eirlys Hunter.

4. A possible Janet Frame sighting?

Literary spies of our acquaintance recently visited the St James Station woolshed, a huge 1870s structure, pit-sawn timbers, on the banks of the Clarence River, North Canterbury. The interior is full of shearers' graffiti - names carved, stencilled and written, dating from 1877 to 2008. Writes our correspondent:

'Among the shearers' stencilled graffiti, by a ladder leading to the loft, I found "J. Frame. 1940 41". This was written in red sheep raddle in a cursive style, below it in capital letters was "J. FRAME. 1940" and below that also in the red sheep raddle which is unique in the graffiti, "Pte Adams 1940 " and below that deeply carved in half inch letters was "J. FRAME. 1940". Could this be Janet Frame at 16?'

Our verdict? Could be.

2 5. A poetry masterclass

In a first for New Zealand, will lead a public poetry masterclass at next year's Writers and Readers Week. Three budding poets will join him on the rostrum at the Embassy Theatre and have their poems workshopped before the festival audience. Bill has led similar masterclasses in the UK, at Scotland's STANZA poetry festival and at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. If you'd like to be considered, there's more information here.

6. Awards and prizes

Congratulations to Rosabel Tan, of this year’s MA programme, who has taken first prize from a field of 42 entries in the inaugural NZSA Asian Award for her story Paper Butterflies. Her prize of $3,000 was awarded at a ceremony in on Friday evening.

It was announced on Saturday at 's ScienceTeller Festival that Helen Heath has won the inaugural ScienceTeller Prize. Our congratulations - Helen completed the MA with us in 2009, and we now await her first full collection of poems which will be published next year by VUP. A chapbook, Watching for Smoke, appeared last year from Seraph Press http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/watching.html

Congratulations to Tina Makereti who has won the first-ever Fiction award for Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards . Tina's winning book began life as her MA thesis at the IIML, and she has continued with us as a PhD candidate, working on a novel that explores the history of Rēkohu.

Congratulations, too, to who takes up the 2012 University of Auckland residency at the Writers’ Centre.

The winners of the Royal Society's Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing were named at last week's Research Honours dinner. For the first time both categories - fiction and non-fiction - were won by scientists.

Congratulations to Susanna Gendall (MA class) – second place in the Takahe Poetry Competition, and third place in Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award. She also has a new baby. Big year! And we were very pleased to see novelist Raj Chakraborti (MA supervisor) as runner-up in the same competition.

And 's off to Foxton.

Stop Press: It’s just been announced that has won the $16,000 Kathleen Grattan Award for her collection of poems, The Truth Garden. More here.

7. Eric Olsen meets the muse

We rather liked this recent take on inspiration and the writing experience, from

3 Eric Olsen as posted on Writerhead. Eric is co-editor of We Wanted to Be Writers, a beautifully choreographed selection of interviews with graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. 'You’re standing by the side of a two-lane country road out in the middle of nowhere, thumb out, waiting for a ride, and along comes a 1957 Cadillac convertible, pink, and driving it is a beautiful young woman (the Muse, of course), and she pulls over and tells you to get in, and you ask, “Where you heading?” and she says, “We’ll see.” So you get in and you’re not sure where you’re going but you don’t care because it’s wonderful to go along for the ride, and you settle back into that plush leather seat and watch the countryside flow past through half-closed eyes. But it doesn’t last long. Just as you’re getting comfy, the beautiful young woman pulls off the road and parks in front of a rundown one-pump gas station with a big, faded Coca Cola sign on top and goes inside, and a couple minutes later she comes out with a bag of butter-toffee peanuts. She tosses the car keys to you and tells you to drive. She gets in on the passenger side and opens the bag and starts eating the peanuts. She doesn’t offer you any. You’re driving now, but you have no idea where you’re going.'

8. The expanding bookshelf

Joan Fleming's first book was launched last Friday.

Rachel Bush's new book was launched last Monday.

Paula Morris talks to Lynn Freeman about Rangatira the novel based on her ancestor Paratene Te Manu

Barbara Strang's new (earthquake-interrupted book) has now been launched by novelist and poet Helen Lowe.

4th Floor 2011 has just been launched. Quite a few people we know in there.

9. Best New Zealand Poems

Submissions for the 2011 issue of Best New Zealand Poems close on December 19th. All the information publishers and poets need is here. The 2011 editor is . You can check out the Best New Zealand Poems website and you can read about the book of the website, The Best of Best New Zealand Poems, here.

10. Peter Campbell RIP

Like many others, we were very sad to hear of the recent death of Peter Campbell. Peter was one of New Zealand's best kept export secrets – a Victoria graduate who became a significant writer and artist, best-known to most of us through his work for the London Review of Books. There is a nice story about his birth which may be, as they say, too good to check, but you will find it in Diane Souhami's Guardian obituary

4 and again in the tribute from the LRB's editor Mary-Kay Wilmers. As she says, 'It is hard to believe that soon there will be paintings that aren’t by Peter on the cover.'

Peter also wrote – quietly, brilliantly – for the magazine. Here he is in February 2002 reflecting on the houses of his birthplace, Wellington.

We hope that the projected New Zealand exhibition of Peter's work will eventuate next year.

Ave atque vale.

11. Gossipy bits

Chris Price is back from Menton. Bernadette Hall has a forearm tattoo (it wasn't there a week ago). Albert Belz (we hear) is going to live in Geelong next year. Glenn Schaeffer will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Nelson this year – on NZ election night. We've been working hard behind the scenes and next year we promise a better- looking newsletter – and one that doesn't trouble Mac-users. Don't say we don't move with the times.

12. Tattooed poet at Lembas

And thinking of Bernadette Hall, she’s to give what may be her last Wellington district reading before she heads south at the end of the year. She’ll be at Lembas Café, Raumati South, 4-6pm, on Sunday November 27th. Ask her to roll her sleeves up!

13. Writing space in downtown Wellington

A Wellington writing studio is looking for a new member. Poet Bill Nelson writes:

'Our writing studio of three former IIML students and one artist has a free desk for hire. The space is cosy and quiet with large windows overlooking Woodward Street in downtown Wellington. There is internet available, a kitchen with tea and coffee, and a delicious sushi place next door for when the brain needs some brain food. Contact me on 021 02799187 or email for more information.'

14. Recent web reading

Ex US Poet Laureate Robert Hass has been beaten by police at Occupy Berkeley.

7 Risks for Single Mothers - Marian Evans' new project.

The English poet Peter Reading has died.

5 Entries are open for the 2012 Hippocrates Prize

Poems in the Waiting Room has announced a poetry competition

Paul Callaghan on "Science and Humanity"

The scariest author photo ever

The Telegraph's Books of the Year

Dunedin's Robert Burns Poetry Competition

Entries close on November 30 for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Hamish Keith on arts policies and the NZ election

Rachel Bush profile

How To Name Your First Novel

Typographer Ryan Gosling

Czesław Miłosz in New Zealand

Writing advice from the world's fastest, most prolific authors

Craig Cliff interviews Breton Dukes

15. Great lists of our time (1)

Exercise Book writers

Pip Adam Rosalind Ali Karen Anderson Angela Andrews Hinemoana Baker Lucas Bernhardt James Brown Rachel Bush Kate Camp Eleanor Catton Catherine Chidgey Lynn Davidson

6 Marian Evans Cliff Fell Jerry Gabriel Chris Gavaler David Geary Paula Green Lavinia Greenlaw Kirsty Gunn Ingrid Horrocks Dinah Hawken Helen Heath Eirlys Hunter Lynn Jenner Megan Johnson Sara Knox Adam Krause Anna Livesey Therese Lloyd Dora Malech Bill Manhire Kirsten McDougall Gavin McGibbon Frankie McMillan Alice Miller Stephanie de Montalk Emma Neale Greg O’Brien Vanessa Rhodes Harry Ricketts Zach Savich Kerrin P. Sharpe Carl Shuker Curtis Sittenfeld Marty Smith Diana Svennes-Smith David Vann Lesley Wheeler Damien Wilkin Ashleigh Young

7 16. Great lists of our time (2)

Pop-up and movable books

(a selection from the Titles Index of Pop-up and Movable Books, A Bibliography, Supplement 1, 1991-1997 by Ann R. Montanaro, Scarecrow Press Inc, 2000)

Action robots – A Pop-up book showing how they work Angels – a Pop-up book Back off! Animal defenses – A real life Pop-up book Backyard Cowboy – a Pop-up book The Big Cheese Pop-up book Birthday – an elegant Pop-up gift book The Circus Pop-up Classic Motorcycles in 3 dimensions Comb-of-the-Golden-Hue Consider the Lilies The Consummate Cigar Book – A three dimensional experience for the true connoisseur Door Bell Don’t do that The Elvis Story False Alarm – A Pop-up adventure Fancy that! Follow that Star Frightful Toffee Apple From Far and Near The Golden Fish Hats I twirl I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now Jungles and Islands The Language of Flowers Let’s make it go from side to side Magnification My Day My Pop-up Book of Fairy Tales My Pop-up Garden Friends My Presents My Stand-up Farm Animals Noisy pops Old city arts’ umbrella On a blossom Owl Pictures everywhere The Pop-up Animal Fair Pop-up Bethlehem – A Biblical Advent calendar Pop-up book of Captain Planet and the Planeteers A Pop-up book of European cities The Pop-up book of long and tall animals

8 Pop-up Book of Colors Pop-up Bugaboos Book of Feelings Pop-up Caterpillar to Butterfly Pop-up Cinderella Cat Pop-up Mickey Mouse Pop-up Notebook Pop-up Numbers Prairie Dog Town – A Pop-up book Pretend You’re a Hippo – A Pop-up book Puck’s Peculiar Petshop – A Pop-up tongue twister tale Rabbits – A Pop-up book Racers and Roadsters – Featuring an amazing Pop-up race car that comes right off the page Richard Scarry’s Bananas Gorilla Smallest Pop-up Book Ever A Safety First at Home Pop-up book The Salmon – A Circular Pop-up book Sandcastling Say ‘aaah’! Secret shapes Skeleton closet: A spooky Pop-up book Star Wars Jabba’s Palace Pop-up book The story of small pine – A Mini Pop-up story book Take a Giant Step – a Pop-up book Thank you: A Pop-up book Thoughts: An elegant Pop-up gift book Tim’s telescopic view of Her Majesty’s Coronation Tip and Top go camping together The Toodles Trees: A lift-the-flap, pull-tab and Pop-up exploration Tuck’s Annual with Realistic Surprise Panoramas Unicorns – A Pop-up book The Viking Pop-up Wedding What’s new? asked the gnu. A Pop-up book of rhyming wordplay. What’s the Answer? Who Popped Out? Whose nose? A Pop-up book

(Big thanks to Cath Vidler, who has – ahem – briefly popped up in Wellington.)

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Supporting the IIML

The International Institute of Modern Letters was established at Victoria University in 2001 to promote and foster contemporary imaginative writing.

We value all those who have helped us to foster the development of emerging writers, for example through scholarships, prizes, and grants. We would welcome the

9 opportunity to talk with you about continuing your support for the IIML, for example through a gift in your will.

All gifts are managed by the Victoria University Foundation, a registered charitable trust established to raise funds in areas of strategic importance to the University, such as the IIML.

For further information on how you can provide philanthropic support to the IIML, please contact our Director, Bill Manhire, Ph: 04 463 6808, Email [email protected], or Diana Meads, Development Manager-Planned Giving, Victoria University of Wellington Foundation Ph: 0800 VIC LEGACY (0800 842 534), Email: [email protected]

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