This is the 189th in a series of occasional newsletters from the Interntaional Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.
1. The missing satchel
Professor Bill Manhire retired on Friday 1 February. After nearly 40 years of employment at VUW, our esteemed friend and the IIML’s founding Director entered his new life with a spring in his step. At drinks last Friday he reached down to pick up his trusty brown academic satchel only to remember it was at home. Free!
Bill can still be found here.
2. Centrally located
Our new staff member Emily Perkins is now living six minutes walk from work! Emily will be teaching the MA fiction workshop. Before that, she will be appearing at the Adelaide Writers Festival. Emily has also written the introduction to Katherine Mansfield’s Selected Stories (Text Classics).
3. Anti Writing Fellow
Carl Shuker, our new Writing Fellow, is moving in, and his new novel Anti-Lebanon is ready to go. Look out for launch details soon.
4. Short Fiction/Old Hands
As Kate Duignan shifts to life as a PhD student, we’d like to thank her warmly for her wonderful teaching over the past three years in the Short Fiction programme. We’re also delighted to welcome William Brandt. William taught the course from 2004-2006. In 2009 he returned from four years in Mexico.
5. Road Trip
Pip Adam, Kirsten McDougall and Ashleigh Young take their work to the provinces next month. With support from Creative New Zealand, the three first-time authors will be teaming up with local writers in places such as Masterton, Palmerston North, Napier, Whanganui, and Paekakariki, visiting bookstores, galleries, and public libraries.
6. PhD Change
A reminder that we’ve changed our date for applying for our PhD programme. It is now 1 July. You can get a sense of what our current and former doctoral students have been up to here.
7. Don't Scratch it
A poetry competition with free entry? We approve. IT Itch Prize for Web Poetry (2013).
8. Residencies & Rentals
Creative New Zealand is calling for applications from ‘rising stars’ and ‘established’ New Zealand writers to take part in the renowned University of Iowa International Writing Program (IWP). Contact Helen Isbister, Communications Manager, Creative New Zealand +64 04 473 0187.
The $30,000 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer’s Residency is for a New Zealand writer of Pacific heritage to carry out work on a creative writing project exploring Pacific identity, culture or history at the University of Hawai'i for three months.
Auckland Council is looking for an artist to work in the Waitakere Ranges (keywords: Artist in Residence).
MA graduate Pat White and his partner are offering their Koroneiki Cottage for rent. Pat writes: ‘Would you like to work, think, write or otherwise occupy yourself in the quiet rural enclave of Gladstone, Wairarapa? We are one and a half hours drive from Wellington and fifteen minutes from Carterton or Masterton.
If the answer is yes, we have a new one bedroom self-contained cottage for short or long term rental, built on our three acre property that is available now. The cottage is situated in a small olive grove, with a carport and its own section.
Contact: Pat White or Catherine Day, phone 06-3727507
Or email: patvwhite@gmail.com or catherine.day.52@gmail.com
9. Deadlines
Time to enter the Cathay Pacific Writing Awards. Entries close on Friday 15 March. (2007 winner for Best Article About a Journey? Our own Clare Moleta).
Christine Cole Catley Short Story Award – entries close 5pm Monday 25 February or email Tom Lodge on thlodge@yahoo.co.uk.
A final call for submissions to the anthology of writing about Eastbourne. This anthology will include works from a wide range of authors including Katherine Mansfield and Robin Hyde, poems by Denis Glover and James K Baxter as well as some previously unpublished work from new local writers. If you would like to be considered email the editors at eastbournewriting@gmail.com
10. The Expanding Bookshelf
Aorewa McLeod's eagerly awaited 'based on true stories' book is in the shops. Who Was That Woman Anyway? Snapshots of a Lesbian Life was mostly written in the MA workshop 2011. The first rave review is in.
Ingrid Horrocks has just published an edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's letters. Ingrid also featured on Kim Hills show.
PhD student Caoilinn Hughes has a poem in the Irish Times. The poem is from the collection that won the 2012 Patrick Kavanagh Award.
11. Gigs & Shows
It’s the last week for Dave Armstrong’s new play Kings of the Gym at Circa. Here’s what the Listener said: ‘Kings of the Gym is rude, subversive, full of bad language and hilariously wicked attacks on our over-earnest, politically correct culture, but what drives the action, and the four irrepressible characters, is not outrage but – wait for it – love.’
Will Agnew's play Stand Up For Charlie is on from the 28th Feb - 9th of March at 8.30pm, 93 Kelburn Parade in the Drama House Studio as part of the Fringe Festival.
Fiona Gunter-Firth has a trans-media work The Cuba Street Project from Feb 15.
Helen Heath and Lynn Davidson perform at Meow Café Sunday 17 Feb 4-6pm.
Spit it Out Guide (Auckland Fringe Festival).
12. Recent Web Reading
Bill Manhire & Charles Causley
Cordite's TransPacific issue now online, including a 'chapbook' of NZ poetry curated by Ian Wedde
Brick Magazine is now podcasting - first up: Teju Cole reviews Alice Oswald's Memorial
Lawrence Jones reviews the AUP Anthology of NZ Literature
A free online course on modern and contemporary American poetry
Tina Makereti in praise of the PhD
Rachel Cusk in praise of the creative writing course
IIML 2013 masterclass visitor Mary Ruefle makes the National Book Critics Circle award shortlist
Eleanor Catton is going to the Manukau Institute of Technology
George Saunders talks to his editor
Books by Glenn Schaeffer’s Bed
13. Great Lists of Our Time
(With thanks to Cath Vidler.)
A double alphabet of programming languages
Abundance
AspectJ
Babbage
Bigwig
Candle
Curry
DinkC
Dylan
Epigram
Emerald
Flavors
Fancy
GOM (Good Old Mad)
Groovy
Hope
Hop
Id
ISWIM
JOVIAL
Joy
ksh
Kaleidoscope
Ladder
Little b
Mary
Mercury
Not Quite C
Not eXactly C
Oak
Octave
Pizza
Plus
Q
Q
Ruby
Rust
Snowball
Smalltalk
Timber
Topspeed
UNITY
UnrealScript
Visual Objects
Verilog
Windows PowerShell
WebDNA
Yorick
YQL
Z notation
Zeno