Tag Archives: Author

Wayne Reid

by

Wayne Reid has just completed his first year at Hagley Writers’ Institute.
He has been involved with health care for over twenty-five years; firstly as a professional exotic animal handler, then the pharmaceutical industry, latterly with Pegasus Health (Charitable) Ltd.
One of his passions is communication – in all its forms. His current role allows him a unique insight into the health needs of the many different migrant and refugee cultures in Canterbury.

Vivienne Plumb

by

Vivienne Plumb writes poetry, fiction and drama, and is based in Auckland. During 2014 she held (with Frankie McMillan) the Ursula Bethall writing residency position at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. She has been the recipient of many awards such as the Bruce Mason Playwrighting Award, the Hubert Church Prose ‘Best First Book’ award, the Sargeson Fellowship, and a University of Iowa writing residency. She has a Doctor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, Australia.

Viv Smith

by

Viv Smith, a Cantabrian at heart now based in Wellington, mentally scribbles in the margins of Board papers. She grieves for the loss of words like ‘twixt’ and groans at bureaucratic use of words like ‘tranche’. She was awarded Hagley Writers’ Institute Margaret Mahy Prize in 2012 and attributes the tutors’ encouragement to apply for the MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University’s IIML completed in 2014. She has published in Turbine, 4th Floor, Takahē, Blackmail Press, Deep South, and Junctures. Some days, she wishes she was a pirate; on others she’s too busy swabbing decks to find her cutlass.

Bronwen Jones

by

Bronwen Jones has two (unpublished) novels in revision stage. One was long-listed in the Historical Novel Society’s 2012 Unpublished Manuscript competition. In 2010, Bronwen was awarded a Mentorship and Assessment by the NZ Society of Authors. In November 2014 she was chosen from among international applicants to join a workshop with author Ruth Ozeki (A Tale for the Time Being) at Hedgebrook, a women’s writing retreat near Seattle. She has a Master of Creative Writing (Auckland) and took part in the Hagley Writers’ Block Year One programme during 2014. A former journalist and corporate writer, she lives in Diamond Harbour.

Her name is Atela

by

Lisa McKenzie 2014

I don’t know what it means in English. It doesn’t really exist in Samoan. But in German, it means Eagle. Adler. Atela. The proud, imperial eagle of the Reich. Gold, shiny. Before it got painted broken black, white and red.

It is my aunty’s name and probably never anyone else’s. Her mother made it up, staring out into the hazy blue of Apia Bay. I can see her there, stroking her rounded belly. Out on the reef lay a ship.

Samoans do this, don strange names upon innocent babes. They make their own rules. My mother’s name is Societe. I found out it meant Society when I was 12. Her other sister’s name is Limasene. Five Cents.

And the story goes the Adler lay broken for years. A German man of war, trailing ripped sail cloth and sharp tooth spars with a snarl on its belly. I wonder if Grandma was sorry she named her daughter after this defeated ship. Gunboat diplomacy quashed by an island cyclone.

My husband’s family don’t say Atela, they just say aunty. Perhaps their mouths forget the lumpy Samoan sounds that don’t quite belong. Like a crooked pe’a tapped upon the pale buttocks of a sailor from Dusseldorf. Or perhaps they just enjoy the feeling they get calling her aunty.

I call her aunty. I always have. Warm, intimate. Like a dusty-skinned hug that smells of coffee and bread. Atela is cold and distant, like the faint call of drowning men, broken heads and graceful fingers, floating in the water.

 

Linda McFarlane

by

Linda McFarlane is a wife, mother of two, part time Practice Nurse, keen gardener, genealogist, poet and writer, living in Christchurch. A 2nd year graduate from Hagley Writers’ Institute in 2013 with an interest in local history, she has written a historical novel for older children, several children’s stories and a collection of poems. She has shared and performed her poetry for the Story Collective, been published in The Press, NZ Your Home and Garden, NZ Gardener, Tai Kiaki Nursing Magazine and written short articles for local groups.

Karen Duncan

by

Karen Duncan  is a Christchurch writer. She is a graduate of Canterbury University with a major in English Literature, has a Diploma in Theatre studies from The Hagley Theatre Company and graduated Cum Laude from The Hagley Writers’ Institute. She has had short stories published by Takehe, Hecate, an Australian literary magazine, and poetry published in The Press.