Dynamic New Zealand writers to feature at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival 20 Jul 2017
Dynamic New Zealand writers making waves at home and abroad will present their work and participate in this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Participation in the festival is part of the New Zealand at Edinburgh season 2017 which sees the return of a New Zealand season across the various Edinburgh festivals taking place in August. This follows an ambitious and successful presentation in 2014.
The writers are award-winning Wellington poet Hera Lindsay Bird, critically acclaimed Auckland poet, playwright and fiction writer Courtney Sina Meredith, and best-selling Wellington novelist, graphic artist and blogger Sarah Laing. They will be accompanied by Rachael King, author and programme director of WORD Christchurch, who has worked with the festival to select the writers and curate their events.
“We are thrilled that the relationships developed during previous seasons have resulted in this new partnership. It will expose the festival’s audiences to new and talented voices from our part of the world and provide a welcome networking opportunity for our writers,” said Creative New Zealand senior manager for international, Cath Cardiff.
With the theme of Brave New Words, this year’s book festival programme features more than 1000 authors from 45 countries.
Hera Lindsay Bird will appear with recent Ted Hughes prize-winner Hollie McNish in Poetry Superstars, and perform in a late night spoken word showcase. Courtney Sina Meredith will join a 21st Century Women panel, curated by guest selectors Roxane Gay and Jackie Kay. Meredith will also appear alongside Scottish poet and musician MacGillivray in Reshuffling the Pack. Sarah Laing will host a reading workshop of Katherine Mansfield stories, as well as talk about her book Mansfield & Me alongside English comic creator Hannah Berry in Graphic Novels of Influential Women. Rachael King will also appear in the children’s programme.
“We are delighted to be working with WORD Christchurch this year and we are very much looking forward to welcoming some of New Zealand’s wonderful writers to the book festival in August,” said Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Nicky Barley.
“It has been a pleasure to work with Edinburgh International Book Festival on programming New Zealand writers into some fantastic events that will showcase their talents and ensure maximum exposure for their work,” said Rachael King.
Biographies:
- Hera Lindsay Bird has an MA in poetry from the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington where she won the 2011 Adam Prize for best folio. Her debut, self-titled book of poetry HERA LINDSAY BIRD was published in July 2016 by Victoria University Press (VUP). It has become the fastest selling, most popular book of poetry the VUP has ever published, and won Best First Book of Poetry at the 2017 Ockhman New Zealand Book Awards.
- Courtney Sina Meredith is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and musician. Her play Rushing Dolls (2010) won a number of awards and was published by Playmarket in 2012. She launched her first published book of poetry, Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick (Beatnik), at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair, and has since published a short story collection, Tail of the Taniwha (2016) to critical acclaim. She has been selected for a number of international writers' residencies. Meredith describes her writing as an ‘ongoing discussion of contemporary urban life with an underlying Pacific politique’. She is of Samoan, Mangaian and Irish descent.
- Sarah Laing is the author of two novels, Dead People’s Music and Fall of Light, and a short story collection, Coming Up Roses. With a background in illustration and design, she runs the popular comic blog Let Me Be Frank, which she started when she held the Frank Sargeson Fellowship in 2008. She has contributed comics to magazines, illustrated children’s books, and co-edited Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women’s Comics. Her latest book, Mansfield & Me, is a graphic biography and memoir, which compares the life of New Zealand’s most famous writer Katherine Mansfield, to Sarah’s own life of creativity, insecurity and celebrity obsession.
- Rachael King has been the programme director of WORD Christchurch since 2013. She is the author of two books for adults, The Sound of Butterflies (winner of Best First Novel at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards) and Magpie Hall (long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and one for children, Red Rocks, which won New Zealand’s longest-running literary award, the Esther Glen Medal. Her work has been translated into eight languages and has garnered critical praise worldwide.
LISTINGS:
Hera Lindsay Bird & Hollie McNish
POETRY’S SUPERSTARS
Mon 21 Aug, 7:15pm - 8:15pm
Venue: Studio Theatre Tickets: £12.00, £10.00
If poetry is a minority interest nobody told Hollie McNish or Hera Lindsay Bird, whose spoken word performances attract widespread attention on and offline, generating a fast-growing cohort of fans. After wowing us last year with ‘Nobody Told Me’, McNish returns with a new collection, ‘Plum’. Hera Lindsay Bird’s strikingly outspoken debut has been the fastest-selling, most popular book of poetry New Zealand has ever published. Two superstar performances, one provocative hour.
Sarah Laing on the Work of Katherine Mansfield
READING WORKSHOP
Sun 20 Aug 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Venue: Writer’s Retreat Tickets: £15.00, £12.00
Sarah Laing, illustrator, author and creator of a graphic memoir of Katherine Mansfield, explores the work of the short story writer. Mansfield often wrote of feeling alienated in her native New Zealand because of the treatment of the Maori people and at 19 relocated to the UK where she became friends with the likes of D H Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Expect an open discussion from the start: you can either read the work ahead of the event or be inspired to pick it up afterwards.
Hannah Berry & Sarah Laing
GRAPHIC NOVELS OF INFLUENTIAL WOMEN
Sun 20 Aug 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Venue: Bosco Theatre (George Street) Tickets: £12.00, £10.00
Katherine Mansfield was the only writer of whom Virginia Woolf was jealous. The New Zealand icon, who died from tuberculosis at the age of 34, is brought to vivid life through Sarah Laing’s new graphic novel memoir. Hannah Berry’s Livestock is a savage satire in words and pictures in which human cloning is legalised while the government is concerned about the political activism of a vastly popular female singer.
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Thordis Elva & Courtney Sina Meredith with Jackie Kay
21ST CENTURY WOMEN
Sat 19 Aug 8:45pm - 9:45pm
Venue: Studio Theatre Tickets: £12.00, £10.00
Jackie Kay brings together guests from three remarkably different continents. Argentinian novelist Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s ‘Slum Virgin’ tells the story of Cleopatra, a transvestite who renounces prostitution after the Virgin Mary appears before her. Icelandic writer Thordis Elva explains what made her decide to re-enter a dialogue with the man who had raped her 20 years earlier. Meanwhile, New Zealander Courtney Sina Meredith talks about her debut book of short stories ‘Tail of the Taniwha’.
MacGillivray & Courtney Sina Meredith
RESHUFFLING THE PACK
Sun 20 Aug 5:00pm - 6:00pm
Venue: Writers' Retreat Tickets: £8.00, £6.00
MacGillivray and Courtney Sina Meredith are contemporary poets who play with the past and toy with tradition to create dynamic, daring new poetry and stories. MacGillivray’s ‘The Nine of Diamonds’ reinterprets the story of the nine of diamonds, the 'Curse of Scotland'. Courtney Sina Meredith is a New Zealand poet, fiction writer and musician, whose writing interrogates contemporary urban life against her Samoan, Mangaian and Irish descent.
Lari Don & Rachael King: Migrating Mythologies
AGE 8-12
Sat 19 Aug 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Venue: Baillie Gifford Imagination Lab Tickets: £5.00
Myths, legends and folklore travel the globe, emerging in various guises. Join two authors from two hemispheres to contrast and compare Celtic Selkies and other unworldly creatures. Scottish writer Lari Don melds Greek and Scots legends in her exciting First Aid for Fairies series, while New Zealander Rachael King explores the world of seal people on Wellington’s wild, untamed coastline.
Website: www.nzatedinburgh.com
Facebook: nzatedinburgh
Twitter: NZ@ED
News
Hilary Timmins' Award-Winning UK Documentary Series To Inspire NZ Students
29 Jun 2020 Education
Dream Catchers, produced and directed by Hilary Timmins, celebrates the success stories of more than thirty inspirational New... more
New Zealand reaffirms support for Flight MH17 judicial process
7 Mar 2020 News
Ahead of the start of the criminal trial in the Netherlands on 9 March, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has reaffirmed the need to... more
Business
NZ Government's Economic package to fight COVID-19
17 Mar 2020 Business News
The Coalition Government has launched the most significant peace-time economic plan in modern New Zealand history to cushion the... more
NZ Government announces aviation relief package
19 Mar 2020 Business News
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today outlined the first tranche of the $600 million aviation sector relief package announced earlier... more
Living
Diversity was Key at New Zealand Trade Tasting in London
6 Jun 2022 Food & Wine
New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Trade Tasting was recently held in London, on Wednesday 4 May, in Lindley Hall.
It was the first... more
Kiwi author stuns Behind the Butterfly Gate
12 Jan 2022 Arts
Hidden behind the Butterfly Gate is where the secret has been kept for 76 years...
New Zealand writer Merryn Corcoran’s... more
Property
Fairer rules for tenants and landlords
17 Nov 2019 Property
17 NOVEMBER 2019
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer... more
New Zealand Government will not implement a Capital Gains Tax
17 Apr 2019 Property
The Coalition Government will not proceed with the Tax Working Group’s recommendation for a capital gains tax, Jacinda Ardern... more
Migration
Boosting border security with electronic travel authority – now over 500,000 issued
19 Nov 2019 Migration
19 NOVEMBER 2019
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to... more
Christchurch reinstated as refugee settlement location
18 Aug 2018 Migration
18 AUGUST 2018
HON IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY
The announcement that Christchurch can once again be a settlement location for refugees... more
Travel
Gallipoli Anzac Day services cancelled
19 Mar 2020 Travel & Tourism
The New Zealand and Australian Governments have announced this year’s joint Anzac Day services at Gallipoli will be cancelled... more
New Zealanders advised not to travel overseas
19 Mar 2020 Travel & Tourism
New Zealanders advised not to travel overseas
more
Sport
The Skipper's Diary: Sir Richard Hadlee honouring his father and NZ's Forty-Niners
27 Oct 2019 Cricket
NZNewsUK London Editor Charlotte Everett spoke to Sir Richard Hadlee about why he’s chosen to publish his father’s... more
PREVIEW: All Blacks v England semi-final
26 Oct 2019 Rugby
The two most convincing quarterfinals winners are set to square off in a semifinal showdown for the ages when the All Blacks meet old... more
Columns
Gordon Campbell on the Gareth Morgan crusade
11 Nov 2016 Opinion
Gordon Campbell on the Gareth Morgan crusade
First published on Werewolf
The ghastly likes of Marine Le Pen in France and Geert ... more
Gordon Campbell on the US election outcome
10 Nov 2016 Opinion
Column - Gordon Campbell
Gordon Campbell on the US election outcome
Well um.. on the bright side, there (probably)... more
Kiwi Success
Congratulations to Loder Cup winner
26 Sep 2018 People
25 SEPTEMBER 2018
The Loder Cup, one of New Zealand’s oldest conservation awards, has been awarded to Robert McGowan for 2018... more
Appointments to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO
16 Aug 2018 Appointments
16 AUGUST 2018Appointments to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO
HON JENNY SALESA
Associate Education Minister Jenny Salesa is... more
Recruitment
Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
14 Aug 2018 Recruitment
14 AUGUST 2018Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
RT HON JACINDA ARDERN
HON CHRIS HIPKINS
Prime Minister
The... more
Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
22 Aug 2018 Recruitment
14 AUGUST 2018Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
RT HON JACINDA ARDERN
HON CHRIS HIPKINS
Prime Minister
The... more