Open Book

Booknotes promo Oct2010

Wellington writer Fleur Beale has won the 2012 Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal for her outstanding contribution to New Zealand writing for children and young adults.

The award, given annually by the Storylines Children's Literature Trust, is New Zealand's top award for achievement in children's literature.

"Fleur Beale's books have won her a large following among young readers," says Storylines Trust chair, Dr Libby Limbrick. "Since her first book Slide the Corner in 1993 she has published a significant body of more than thirty works of fiction. Many have been shortlisted for awards, with her more recent books, such as the Esther Glenn winner Juno of Taris and 2011 New Zealand Post Senior Fiction winner Fierce September, taking top prizes."

A former secondary school teacher in Hamilton, Fleur Beale is also widely known as a popular creative writing teacher and mentor to young and new writers. She regular visits schools for the New Zealand Book Council. She has two adult daughters.

Her thirty books, many published in America and England, include the classic I am Not Esther, winner of the Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book.

The Margaret Mahy Medal was instituted in 1991. Among its recipients have been writers Joy Cowley, William Taylor, Maurice Gee, David Hill and Kate De Goldi, publisher Ann Mallinson and illustrators Gavin Bishop and Lynley Dodd.

Fleur Beale will deliver her Mahy Lecture and the Storylines’ annual Margaret Mahy Day being held in Auckland on Saturday 31 March 2012.

Fleur Beale is available for interview by arrangement.

To arrange interview or for more information, please contact:

Storylines Administrator Vicki Cunningham, childlitnz@storylines.org.nz

Eight of New Zealand’s best poets will take part in a live performance poetry event in New York City at the end of February.

For two years Jim Wilson travelled to cities and towns throughout the USA and put poem posters by Kiwi poets on poles, walls and in cafes and stores.

Then a dedicated group of volunteers also put these poem posters up in cities around the world from London, Glasgow, Paris and Vienna through to Sydney, Australia.

Back home in New Zealand, Wilson’s company Phantom Billstickers Ltd has put up thousands of Kiwi poems on walls and poster bollards from Invercargill to Whangarei. The Phantom Billstickers Poems on Posters initiative has attracted much interest and attention from radio stations, newspaper columns, and blogs, but more importantly (much more importantly) the poems themselves have been read on the streets. The poems on posters capture the interest of the passer-by and this is what makes all the difference.

Now eight of New Zealand’s finest poets bring their voices, hearts, and words to a unique poetry event in New York.

These leading performers on the Aotearoa New Zealand spoken word scene are hand-picked rugged individualists, energetic imagineers, who will bring you poetry in motion from far-flung degrees of latitude, with a Kiwi-consciousness-raising cabaret, by turns eclectic, electric, comic, melancholic, idiosyncratic and euphoric. Spiraling out of the South Pacific to stand and deliver stories and lyrics about oceanic love, environmental vigilance, and the dramatic dilemmas of identity, this flying circus of Kiwiana activists, Pasifika scene-painters, fretboard-fingering songsters, acrobatic word-jugglers and megaphone motormouths promises to carry you across the date-line and re-orientate your inner global positioning satellite, all in the course of just one colorful evening.

The Poets From New Zealand to Perform in New York on February 28, 2012 are: Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, David Eggleton, Hinemoana Baker, Sandra Bell, Jay Clarkson, Pamela Gordon (reading Janet Frame), Otis Mace and Tusiata Avia.

Many other Kiwi poets have lent their voice to this project since its inception in 2009. Several prominent American poets have also participated.

Two American Poets Making a Special Guest Appearance at this Event are: Gerald Stern (National Book Award winner) and Jeffrey McCaleb (The Bard of Cookeville, Tennessee).

Jim Wilson founded Phantom Billstickers, New Zealand's premier poster and street-media company in 1982, to give musicians, the arts, and creative people in New Zealand a voice, and to use posters on walls to put “Bums on Seats”. Now his aim is to use posters to share the heart of the Kiwi poet with people outside of New Zealand. Simple.

Poets from New Zealand and the United States who have had their work featured on poem posters as a part of this project include: Aroha Harris, Becky Woodall, Ben Brown, Bernadette Hall, Bill Direen, Bill Manhire, Brett Lupton, Brian Turner, Campbell McKay, Chris Price, Chris Knox, David Eggleton, Dylan Kemp, Elizabeth Smither, Frankie McMillan, Gary Langford, Gary McCormick, Geoff Cochrane, Gerald Stern, Hilaire Campbell, Hinemoana Baker, Hone Tuwhare, Jackie Steincamp, James K Baxter, James Milne (aka Lawrence Arabia), Janet Frame, Jay Clarkson, Jeffery McCaleb, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Jody Lloyd, Joe Treceno, Jordan Luck, Josie McQuail, Keri Hulme, Laurence Arabia, Marcie Sims, Marty Smith, Michael White, Michele Leggott, Nicholas Thomas, Otis Mace, Pablo Nova, Patrick Connors, Rhian Gallagher, Robert Creeley, Robert Pinsky, Roger Hickin, Sam Hunt, Sandra Bell, Selina Marsh, Serie Barford, Sonja Yelich, Stephen Oliver and Tusiata Avia.

We hope that many more will be able to participate as the project continues.

You can read about the Phantom Billstickers Poems on Posters project as well as Jim Wilson’s articles on postering in cities across the USA at http://www.0800phantom.co.nz/blog/poetry

True stories of family holidays are full of highs and lows: laughter, singing, lost shoes, swimming, ice creams, heat stroke and the occasional allergic reaction.

Seven brave souls – Barbara Else, Fleur Beale, Catherine Robertson, Harry Ricketts, Pip Adam, Colin Morris and Ray Ahipene-Mercer – dish on their family holidays at True Stories Told Live in Wellington next week.

This is a new year fundraising event for Writers in Schools. Join us for holiday pain and glory – and help us create happy young readers while you listen.

“Amazing to be in the presence of people remembering, shaping stories in the moment. Funny, awkward, moving, beautiful.” - Emily Perkins

True Stories Told Live: Monday 13th February, 6.15pm at Meow Café, 9 Edward Street, Wellington.

Ticketing: Book your tickets now: $10 ($5 for members)