Blog Archives
Byline Frank Sargeson Trust Chair Elizabeth Aitken-Rose explores what it means to be an author in the digital age. We are all living and operating in the middle of a technological revolution – a global community in which we expect…
John Horrocks revisits John A Lee’s novel Civilian into Soldier. “Whoosh – the good old Christian bayonet”: this is the scribbled annotation to a 1937 press clipping in one of John A Lee’s scrapbooks. He was commenting on an editorial…
Byline Jacinda Adern, the Labour Spokesperson for Arts, Culture and Heritage, assesses the literary sector from the left of the political spectrum. I can still remember the mottled edges of my favourite childhood books. I read everything, including my mother’s…
The Honourable Maggie Barry, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, addresses the state of the literary nation and looks to its future.
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Lydia Wevers re-reads Phillip Mann’s early novels I have managed to find my 1982 copy of Phillip Mann’s The Eye of the Queen, hardback and in its distinctive bright yellow Gollancz cover. Mann’s early novels are now available in a…
Paul Morris reflects on reviewing overseas and at home. Spending time elsewhere inevitably leads to comparisons. I want to reflect on reviewing and the differences between the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Book reviews form part of what I call…
Peter Simpson, co-founder and director, remembers The Holloway Press. The retrospective exhibition, Dark Arts: Twenty Years of the Holloway Press, so ably curated by Francis McWhannell, is endgame for the Press, the last move in a game that started more…
Nearly three years ago, I went to the funeral of Hugh Llewellyn Price who died after many months of living with cancer. And “living with” is the operative phrase here, as even during his last years, he was still having…
Isa Moynihan (1925-2013) Writer and reviewer Isa Moynihan of Christchurch died in June at the age of 88. Her work was published in New Zealand and overseas anthologies, but deserved greater recognition than it received. It was characterised by ironic…
Novelist and poet Fiona Kidman recalls her first published book. When first asked to contribute this essay, my response was to beg another later book. My first novel, perhaps? On reflection, I saw this for the cowardice it was. The…
