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Poem of the Week: TREATY by Reihana MacDonald
From: AUP New Poets 3, 1998
Tin of cocoa
Tin of cocoa
Tin of cocoa
All at sea
On a boat
No one land
Archive for September, 2009
Shakespeare’s Pericles Blended
RELEASE
It’s Shakespeare as you’ve never seen it – put into a cultural blender of Asian theatre forms to create a visually stunning hybrid performance of The Bard’s fantastical tale of Pericles.
According to Director, Dr Megan Evans, Victoria’s senior undergraduate students have incorporated the Chinese theatre form of Jingju and the Japanese forms of Noh, Kyōgen, Kabuki and Bunraku to put a different spin on Shakespeare’s take of princesses, prostitutes and kings.
Voodoo Scholarship on Voodoo Histories
David Aaronvitch, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History. Reviewed by MATTHEW DENTITH
Jonathan Cape, London, 2009
If you are a singer in the “Conspiracy Theories are bunk!” choir and you love being preached to, then you will love David Aaronvitch’s new book, Voodoo Histories. If, on the other hand, you are even just a little sceptical of “Conspiracy Theory Scepticism,” then odds are Aaronvitch’s book will ultimately cause you to engage in um-ing, ah-ing and copious sighing.
I don’t think there is much middle ground.
In Voodoo Histories Aaronovitch has set himself the task of showing up a selection of popular Conspiracy Theories. His intended audience is people like himself, who know that Conspiracy Theories are bunk and just need some ammunition to prove it.
A clown, a storyteller and a philosopher
A clown, a storyteller and a philosopher: Three French comic book writers
By Sam Buchanan
In Harum Scarum and The Hoodoodad, from the series titled The Spiffy Adventures of McConey, Lewis Trondheim writes comics that are proud to be silly. His characters, a rabbit and a cat, blunder through their adventures guided by a logic and recklessness that stems more from laziness than intelligence or courage. They demonstrate that, as a survival mechanism, stupidity is hugely underrated.
Trondheim often collaborates with other writers – with Manu Larcenet (see below) on the madcap Astronauts of the Future – and with Olivier Appollodorus on Bourbon Island 1730. More historical fiction than comedy, it’s a tale of an ornithologists (who is a duck) coming into contact with the last few embers of piracy on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion while searching for a live dodo. The setting is a fascinating society of slaves, plantation owners and former pirates whom isolation is slowly forcing together, while the communities of escaped slaves in the mountains are hunted down and massacred.
Five Dramas in an Hour at Te Papa
21 September: Short/Sharp/Script (1)
One hour, five different dramas: actors perform rehearsed readings of work produced by MA (Script) students at the IIML. This week Ken Duncum introduces scripts by Amy Rountree, Sugu Pillay, Matthew Nagel, Gwyneth Hyndman and Colin Hodson.
More New Writers at Te Papa
14 September: The Next Page (2)
Readings by another ten MA (Page) students from the IIML: Emma Martin, Lindsay Pope, Susannah Goodman, Bill Nelson, Fiona Mitford, Hannah Jolly, Emile Hofstede, Megan Knott, Ashleigh Young and Melissa Reid take the stage to entertain you, introduced by Chris Price.
1000 NZ classics released as eBooks
RELEASE
New Zealanders can now freely download—and store in their pockets—hundreds of our most well-known books, courtesy of Victoria University’s New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC).
More than 1000 New Zealand electronic books (eBooks) are now available for download on the NZETC website giving people easy access to some of the great works in New Zealand literature including Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party and Other Stories, Bill Pearson’s Coal Flat, and Robin Hyde’s The Godwits Fly.
New Writers Talk
Writers On Monday at Te Papa
7 September: The Next Page (1)
In September we take a look at the talent emerging from the 2009 writing workshops at the IIML. This week ten writers read from poetry, fiction and memoirs in progress: Carol Cromie, Claire Brunette, Pat White, Kay Corns, Joanne Davy, James Purtill, Helen Heath, Frances Mountier, Breton Dukes and Elizabeth Russell are introduced by Damien Wilkins.
New Fantasy Novel
Release
On August 20, 2009, my new fantasy novel, Gateway to DreamWorld was released.
Synopsis: On their way home from baseball tryouts, Brad Colby and his two sons are involved in a terrible car accident that leaves six-year-old Pete in a coma. When Pete awakens, the family is crushed to learn that he is paralyzed.
Meanwhile, Pete’s eight-year-old brother, Jason, has been having powerful dreams that lead him to a mysterious realm known as DreamWorld. Jason discovers that all of his desires can come true in DreamWorld, but the time is fast approaching when he will have to choose between his two worlds.