WORD Christchurch 2024 Features UC Writers-in-residence

A long-standing writers residency programme at UC has nurtured numerous Kiwi writers who feature in and contribute to WORD Christchurch 2024 festival.

Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) community has supported WORD Christchurch since it began in 1997 with writers and experts contributing to sessions throughout the festival’s various iterations. As a principal partner, UC enhances the festival’s creative and economic contribution to Waitaha Canterbury.

One of the ways UC supports writers is through the Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing, awarded annually to enable writers to pursue their art on campus. Named after the Christchurch poet and artist Ursula Bethell (1874–1945), this residency is jointly funded by UC Faculty of Arts and Creative New Zealand, providing support for Aotearoa New Zealand writers and fostering New Zealand writing.

WORD Christchurch Trust Board member, UC Arts Senior Lecturer Dr Erin Harrington, who is also hosting a sniffable session at WORD on Fragrant Texts, says: “The Residency means we can support some of the country’s best writers in their work, which is valuable on its own, but it is also important as it connects writers with University of Canterbury students, staff, and the community at large, including through public events and engagements. Many of our relationships with past residents continue for years past the end of each residency.”

Former UC writers-in-residence at WORD 2024

The WORD 2024 programme includes an array of former Ursula Bethell writers-in-residence, alongside many other staff, alumni, and friends of the university.

Former WORD festival Programme Director and author Rachael King moved to Ōtautahi Christchurch in 2008 to take up the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence role at UC and never left. Her fourth novel, The Grimmelings, was published in February 2024 and is a finalist in this year’s New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, while her earlier novel, Red Rocks, is now in production for television. She’s appearing at WORD twice; in a special session on 9 August Books Alive – for primary and intermediate students, and in the free session Adventures with Books: Claire Mabey & Rachael King.

A 2024 UC writer-in-residence, Pip Adam is the award-winning author of four novels and presents a session on Writing Power. Her latest novel, Audition, is part science fiction, part social realism as it scrutinises systems of power. “Every now and then, you are lucky enough to come across a book so inventive, so thrillingly odd, that you struggle to stop thinking about it.” – The Guardian on Audition.

In a special panel discussion, The Power of Community, 2022 UC writer-in-residence Tina Makereti, UC Engineering graduate and author Bariz Shah, and UC Arts and Education graduate poet Sara Qasem will discuss the issues facing their communities, and how culture can transcend borders, with UC Senior Lecturer peace/conflict scholar Dr Mahdis Azarmandi.Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) is the author of three novels, a short story collection and a forthcoming collection of essays. She is also co-editor of Black Marks on the White Page, an anthology that celebrates Māori and Pasifika writing. She is also talking to scholar and activist Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) in Hine Toa: Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, as well as featuring in Māpuna: LIVE. Makereti recently joined the WORD board too.

2022 UC writer-in-residence David Coventry’s Performance looks at the struggles of living with ME/CFS and is a vivid, at times disorienting series of journeys, stopovers and emergencies that take in the world. Appearing in Narrative Threads with Airini Beautrais, the two writers share a searingly intellectual and inquiring style, and they join journalist Alex Casey in conversation.

A 2020 Ursula Bethell writer-in-residence, Nathan Joe is a Chinese-Kiwi playwright and performance poet raised in, and deeply connected to, Ōtautahi Christchurch. Originally commissioned as a poetry short film, Homecoming Poems: Live is a reimagined and expanded poetry performance by Joe, complemented by a live score with deconstructed club music.

Amy Head is the author of novels and a collection of short stories, Tough, which won the Best First Book Award for Fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards. She was also an Ursula Bethell writer-in-residence at UC in 2020. Head’s linked collection of stories Signs of Life is set in the years following the Ōtautahi Christchurch earthquakes. Join the author as she talks about her stories in some of the locations where they’re set and see the city through the eyes of her characters in the aftermath of a disaster.

Pasifika poet and performer Tusiata Avia MNZM is a UC graduate, was the 2005 artist-in-residence in UC’s Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, and a 2010 Ursula Bethell writer-in-residence. Bringing to life her award-winning The Savage Coloniser Book on stage, The Savage Coloniser Show is a timely examination of race and racism, which will be performed in her hometown for the first time from 10-13 September.

UC staff appearing at WORD 2024 include Māori studies lecturer Kommi (Kāi Tahu, Te-Āti-Awa), physicist Dr Michele Bannister, creative arts expert Dr Erin Harrington, volcanologist Professor Ben Kennedy, criminologist Dr Jarrod Gilbert, and singer Naomi van den Broek.

Find out more about the Ursula Bethell Residency | University of Canterbury https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/study/academic-study/arts/arts-schools-and-departments/english-department/ursula-bethell-residency

WORD Christchurch brings communities together through a love of words in all their forms, giving Ōtautahi Christchurch audiences direct access to the best storytellers and writers from Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. It’s a chance to share ground-breaking ideas, and Ngai Tahu stories, and an opportunity for local writers to create new work. The programme is packed with talented UC experts, alumni and writers-in-residence. Find out morehere.

WORD Christchurch 2024 takes place 27 August – 1 September ata range of city venues. https://wordchristchurch.co.nz

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