Graduate Showcase
On this page:
In 2008 we first invited a selection of graduates to share their experiences of the Master of Arts in Creative Writing programme and outline what they're doing now. Their responses, and brief biographical notes, are below. This page is updated and added to from time to time.
You can also read about our current PhD students and their projects on our PhD Profiles page.
Michele Amas (Writing for the Page stream, 2005)
Michele writes: 'For me the course offered the chance to "give over to what you love". A nine month window of opportunity to step out of myself and make time to write. There is an intimacy and collective consciousness of the writers you work with, in a space that radiates a respect for creative thinking. If writing excites you the IIML offers the perfect clandestine meeting place. You are surrounded by writers who are working, not just talking about working, there is an energy about the place, it seeps out of the walls, asks you to open doors you are not familiar with, encourages discovery. The course demands you focus, but not in a navel-gazing way. It asks that you look and participate, it's not a solitary year by any means.'
Bio: Michele Amas came to poetry with script-writing and directing credits to her name, as well as a career as an actor. Michele won the Adam Prize for the best folio produced in her MA year, and her first collection of poetry, After the Dance, was published in 2006.
The book was acclaimed by reviewers. Douglas McNeill in New Zealand Books praised the 'sharp intelligence that can transform domestic life into rewarding poetry without slipping into the traps set by sentimentality.' Fellow poet Bernadette Hall has also commented on the role of the family in this collection; 'ground for muscular conflict, unflinching commitment, devotion, betrayal and rage.'
After the Dance was shortlisted for the Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for poetry in 2007. It also earned Michele a nomination for the 2008 Prize in Modern Letters.
Michele has published in various journals, including Sport, Turbine, and the Iowa Review. Her poem 'Daughter' was selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2005.
Hinemoana Baker (Writing for the Page stream, 2002)
Hinemoana writes: 'I'd have to say the best thing I got out of my MA year was that I wrote a book. Of course I made friends, some I now consider whānau. But I love a deadline, me, and that looming November date was just the kind of someone-(Bill)-is-expecting-something-from-me daily ass-kicking that I needed. Since then? No more books. (Not entirely true: I edited one and I have a manuscript with readers now. But people - it's six years later.)
The sense of being alumni of the course is still strong and nourishing. The Institute keeps me brightly and bouncily in the loop - the "What's On" type stuff, and the occasional invitation to speak or take a workshops. Out in the real world, meeting other writers who've done the course is always a moment of instant bonding. The difference the course has made to my writerly self-esteem is immense. In my darkest moments of self-doubt I can still say to myself "at least I got into the MA". Sad, but true.'
Bio: 'She is the daughter of an ex-Māori All Black dad and a mother who descends from Bavarian goat-herds known for their yodelling. She asserts that neither the yodelling nor the sporting gene have surfaced in her so far.' (Queensland Poetry Festival 2006 website.)
Hinemoana has connections to Ngāti Raukawa (Ngāti Tukorehe); Ngāti Toa Rangatira; Te āti Awa (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama); and Kāi Tahu (Kāti Moki Tuarua). She draws on her Māori and Pākehā ancestry in her work, and often interweaves Te Reo and English within a single poem.
Hinemoana is well known as an accomplished singer/songwriter as well as a writer. She has written for page, stage and film. Poetry written for her MA manuscript was published in her first collection mātuhi/needle, 2004. The book was co-published by Victoria University Press and Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen's publishing house, Perceval Press. The result was a sumptuously produced hardback, illustrated with paintings by Jenny Rendell. The book was accompanied by a CD which included the title song from her first album, puāwai, released that same year.
David Eggleton, writing in the Listener, described a 'jabbing, needling quality' in the poetry. 'The lines, often constricted as if in corsets, offer nuanced, enigmatic snatches of autobiography: the lines tease you and then distance themselves, as if waiting to see what the effect will be. Baker is attuned to the arch, knowing humour currently fashionable, but she's inventive enough to add her own spin and keep you amused by the way she reconjugates the obvious, making it surprising all over again.'
In 2007 Hinemoana co-edited an anthology of poetry, Kaupapa: New Zealand Poets, World Issues. Her poems 'A Walk With Your Father and 'One' were selected for the 2004 and 2006 Best New Zealand Poems respectively. She lives in Paekākāriki on the Kapiti Coast.
Eleanor Catton (Writing for the Page stream, 2007)
Eleanor writes: 'The IIML experience was absolutely invaluable to me. The programme equipped me with the tools, vocabulary, and confidence to begin to take myself seriously as a writer.'
Bio: Eleanor completed the MA in 2007, winning the Adam Award for her manuscript, The Rehearsal. The novel was published in 2008 by Victoria University Press, and soon after publication in New Zealand it was sold to major publishers in the UK and the USA. Also in 2007 she won the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition for her story ‘Necropolis’, which was later included in Best New Zealand Fiction Five. In 2008 she was awarded the Louis Johnson Bursary for emerging writers, and the Glenn Schaeffer Fellowship to study at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. At Iowa she received the inaugural Flannery O’Connor scholarship to spend a further year’s study in the MFA programme. The Rehearsal won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the 2009 Montana NZ Book Awards and has been rapturously received in the UK (Granta, 2009), winning the 2009 UK Society of Authors' Betty Trask Award. It will be published in the US by Little Brown in early 2010.
She is currently working on a quartet of young adult fantasy novels and a second novel for adults, set in 1860s New Zealand. Her short stories have been published in Granta, Sport, Hue & Cry, and Turbine.
Praise for The Rehearsal:
'This astonishing debut novel from young New Zealander Eleanor Catton is a cause for surprise and celebration...' The Guardian
'As debuts go, this one is astral - as well as teasing, intelligent and knowing.' The Scotsman
'My favourite New Zealand novel of the year.' Louise O'Brien, Nine to Noon Best Books of 2008
Lynda Chanwai-Earle (Scriptwriting stream, 2005)
Lynda writes: 'I turned 40 during my MA year at Victoria. First thing I was asked (by my loved ones) was why I wanted to be a student again, after all aren't we supposed to be out there working in our chosen field, proving ourselves already? Isn't it a bit late to be learning now? My answer was simple; I knew then as I know now, that I was to have one of the best years of my life, cosseted in those hallowed halls (actually they're very small rooms) of learning, amongst the best and brightest, satiating my insatiable appetite for everything theatre and film. Ask any graduate of Ken Duncum's scriptwriting course, "Did you want to leave?" The answer will most likely be "NO, please let us stay, we need you SO!" Most of us had to be dragged away kicking and screaming, casting scathing looks at the baby-faced IIML students chosen for the following year.
Okay, I was lucky too; I got into a great group of ten. During feedback sessions on our scripts with the ever energetic and eruditely generous Ken, we left our egos at the door (mostly) and got on with it. I was lucky; there were no writer's tantrums, no frenzied bursts of denial, and no long, monotonous lecturing monotones from opinionated experts. There was occasional writer's block, occasional terror at public readings and the odd feeling of disquiet for an insolvent future, which accompanies any writer at the best of times - but that's life. Would I want to do the course all over again? Of course, duh!'
Bio: Lynda has been writing from an early age. Her first book of poetry (Honeypants) was published by Auckland University Press in 1994 and was selected for the Penn Book Awards and the New Zealand Book Awards in 1995. Amongst many works written for theatre, her play Ka Shue (Letters Home) was selected to represent Aotearoa in the Fourth International Women Playwrights Conference in Galway, Ireland in 1997. Ka Shue was published by the Women's Play Press in 1998.
Lynda has also been involved as a script co-ordinator, drama facilitator and performer for dramas created within prisons: Kai Maumahara, Kai Maumahara II, A Christmas Wish and Watea (directed by Jim Moriarty, with Te Rakau Hua O Te Wao Tapu), which have all met with critical acclaim.
Since graduating from the MA Scriptwriting course Lynda has produced two gorgeous little girls: Tia and Sophia Manaia. Her portfolio thesis; a film script titled Little Dragon (formerly Abalone Soup), was picked up by a producer and received second draft development funding from the New Zealand Film Commission. Translated into Chinese, Little Dragon was recently selected as one of a dozen international film scripts to be pitched at the 2008 Shanghai Film Festival.
Lynda's play Heat (set in the Antarctic) recently received the 2008 STAB commission and premiered at Bats in November, 2008. Lynda has also been commissioned to write a play for Wellington High School - a collective history about Puke Ahu, Mt Cook.
Marian Evans (Scriptwriting stream, 2004 )
Marian writes: 'I missed out the first time I applied. Went off to do an LLM, make a feature doco, organise a women's film festival. Then, because my thesis was on parental responsibility, I went to Ken Duncum's Cherish (am not a theatre-going girl). Wow! I thought. I could learn so much from this writer. So I applied again. Got in.
And it was hard. I often felt undereducated: one classmate's favourite book was by Nabokov; all I knew of Nabokov was Sue Lyon's heart-shaped shades. I struggled to believe I was a writer. I wasn't used to sharing stories with men. Everyone seemed more skilled than I was, and faster at finding ideas. They'd seen every film in the world, were also actors, playwrights or novelists, had television and debated programmes vigorously (the last programme I'd enjoyed was MASH).
Then we had - horrors - to write a play. What did that have to do with the story I wanted to tell? On a quick trip to a French women's film festival I typed away in airport lounges; and was re-inspired when I saw couples watching DVDs on their laptops.
Things got better. I learned how to give and receive feedback; and heaps from reading and responding to the others' work. It was easy to love my classmates, the tree outside our classroom, and our teacher. And one day I realised, as I chatted with my characters, that I was happier than I'd ever been (though I cried later, when Ken told me I'd won the class prize).
Then from a placement at Natural History New Zealand to fast-turnaround children's television at Cloud 9; writing with Cushla Parekowhai; a stunning IIML masterclass with Linda Voorhees and the joys of its Bluebird group. And now here I am again at the IIML, doing a PhD about women's low participation in feature script-writing, writing three features to develop in three different ways and a chickflick metascript about the processes. Feeling very very lucky.'
Read about Marian's PhD in Creative Writing project.
Bio: Marian Evans is a cultural activist, member of the Spiral Collective that published Keri Hulme's Booker Prize-winning novel the bone people, and a senior research associate at Gender & Women's Studies (VUW). She is also the recipient of an Orangi Kaupapa Award, an Embassy Trust Prize for her MA feature script, Mothersongs/Chansons maternelles; and three beautiful sons. She holds a Women in Leadership PhD Scholarship.
See also:
- Sister Galvan ('Sheer joy', NZ Sunday Star Times)
- LLM thesis (University of Otago, degree awarded with distinction)
- PhD report for people who've helped me (669KB PDF)
- Notes on Australian and New Zealand women's participation in feature film-making (for Women in Film & Television New South Wales)
- Chick flick review article (for Junctures)
- Wellywoodwoman (Marian Evans' blog)
Cliff Fell (Writing for the Page stream, 2002)
Cliff writes: 'As to what the IIML gave me, well there are many things, of course, but there is one that was particularly important to me back in those heady days of 2002. To be precise it was really something that Glenn Schaeffer House gave me, as much as the IIML, and it was this: a roof over my head. And with it, a healthy respect for working late.
Has anyone else noticed how Glenn Schaeffer House feels like a skinny, many-decked ship sailing out across the city? 'Specially at night, when you're the only one on watch and the winds and rain are knocking at the windows, or in the moonlight when from the workshop room it seems that you're floating above the illuminations of a coral sea. Or like a mountain hermitage, perhaps. Commuting from the South Island each week meant that I spent almost all my time in Wellington working on my folio and Reading Journal, flitting between the library, the MA Computer lab and Glenn Schaeffer House. I got a lot of reading and writing done there, particularly on my Reading Journal. Among other treasures, the IIML library gave me the chance to read a number of American poets who were new to me, or whom I'd previously neglected, on account of my then Anglo-centric reading tastes: Galway Kinnell, Louis Simpson, Adrienne Rich and John Ashbery, among others, all helped shift my cloistered sense of what poetry could be or do.
I came to see how much the reading and writing of the Reading Journal would feed into the poems I wrote, the output that became The Adulterer's Bible. Not so much in terms of the concepts or content I was absorbing, but in a more significant way. By the time my journal was due to be handed in, I had come to appreciate something beyond the pleasure of reading - the pleasure of putting down words to formulate my sense of understanding what I was reading, and the pleasure of simply writing for writing's sake.
And so the journal expanded far beyond a reading log. It grew into a document of more than 30,000 words that recorded my travels to and from Wellington: ferry trips, characters I met on the ferry - most bizarrely of all, a troupe of ballerinas, dressed and made up for a production of Swan Lake - winter nights hitch-hiking through the top of the south and various other encounters on the way.
But the real thing I learnt on those long nights working on my journal, transcribing it to disc with my inadequate typing skills, was a deeper lesson about the act of writing. That writing isn't writing until it takes shape on the page. And I remembered how Ted Hughes would encourage Sylvia Plath (back in the heady days of their marriage) to write anything, no matter what, just to write herself into the space where poems would happen. And this is what I began to find out for myself - and still do. I came to recognise the wisdom of Ted Hughes's words, that it doesn't really matter what you're writing - letters, emails, school reports, reviews, even a little memoir like this - whatever it may be, the simple, repetitive, insistent act of blackening the page, or sending a line on its journey across the screen, can take the mind into a place where the real thing, the real writing can occasionally be glimpsed, like the mythical white hart bounding through the trees, from where the poet will drop all else and set off in pursuit.
So the IIML and Glenn Schaeffer House offered me more than just somewhere to work late into the night - it became the quiet, reflective space perched above the city from which I could sail into those long writing nights, in the hope that a line or two might arrive like a ripple on the waters, a wind-shift that would set me on course for a poem.'
Bio: Cliff Fell is well practised at making himself at home in new places.
He was born in London, after some years of travelling, working and living in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, he arrived in New Zealand in 1997, and settled in Nelson. He now lives with his family on a small farm in the Moutere Valley and teaches in the School of Arts at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.
Cliff's MA manuscript The Adulterer's Bible won the Adam Prize in 2002. It went on to be published by Victoria University Press in 2003. The book won the Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry in the following year, with the judges describing it as an 'outstanding first book.' Writing in the Listener, Peter Bland described The Adulterer's Bible as 'a fine first book' that 'signals both an interest in the accidental mysteries of language and a taste for the erotic.'
Several editions of Best New Zealand Poems have included Cliff's work; in 2003, 'Ophelia', in 2006, 'Ovid in the Antipodes', and in 2007, 'The M at the End of the Earth'. The last two poems are included in Cliff's forthcoming second book, Beauty of the Badlands, which draws in the landscape of Moutere, Ernest Rutherford and a roadtrip through the southwest USA.
Kelly Kilgour (Scriptwriting stream, 2003)
Kelly writes: 'When I applied to the IIML scriptwriting course, I'd trained as an actor and had only ever co-written a play that I was about to premiere at BATS and one screenplay that luckily had a good first 20 pages 'cause that's all we needed to submit. Since leaving I've written for theatre, television and film. I'm not going to bore anyone with my CV. I doubt it would be that long anyway. The Scriptwriting MA is unlike any other course because it allowed me the opportunity to do what I needed to do - write. To concentrate on writing script so I could discover for myself the methods and tools that work best for me. Naturally I was encouraged to read books that would aid my development. But there was no preaching of any structural formulas. No bureaucratic bullshit essays or theory.
The one thing I found most beneficial, other than Ken Duncum's quiet genius and guidance, was reading classmates' work and giving feedback on their projects. And having them return the favour. As a fairly average actor I was used to criticism. But it's one thing to be criticised about how you interpret someone else's writing. It's another to have your own writing torn apart. You take it personally even when it's not. So learning how to give and receive criticism constructively, if only slightly, prepared me for the rejection and notes from producers and others that you inevitably receive if you plan on continuing to work in this industry as a writer. And more importantly, learning how to decipher those notes.'
Bio: Before completing the MA at Victoria University, Kelly emerged from an acting background; writing his first feature while running a bar in England and co-writing his first play upon return. Kelly completed another feature film during the course that won a place on the NZFC's 1st Writers Initiative in 2004.
In 2005 he co-wrote the CNZ-funded comedy/musical It's A Whanau Thing produced at Globe and BATS Theatre and picked up by Circa Theatre. Kelly has had two other plays produced at BATS, most recently Part Of Me which Kelly's currently adapting into a feature film.
In 2006 Kelly storylined on Shortland Street for South Pacific Pictures and after leaving the table of pain, wrote several dialogue scripts. In 2006/07/08, Kelly co-wrote the winning Wellington 48hr Short Films and won Best Script for the latter two.
In Feb 2007, Kelly was commissioned to adapt the NZ No.1 bestselling novel The Denniston Rose into a feature-length screenplay. In addition to Denniston Rose, Kelly is currently developing two other feature films; Miramar Dog - to be directed by Paul Murphy (Second Hand Wedding) - and Maori Detective & the Boogie Fever (70s-style action comedy based on his winning 48hrs short film). Kelly is also developing a new play to be produced in 2009.
Rachael King (2001)
Rachael writes: 'I often describe the year I did the MA as the second best year of my life. This isn't faint praise - in 2006 I got married, had my first novel published and gave birth to my son, so the competition is stiff.
It is fair to say that 2001 changed everything for me. Up until then, I had always wanted be a novelist but I had a lack of focus, primarily, but also a lack of confidence. It is a misconception, I think, that an MA in Creative Writing teaches you how to write - that everyone who has one has 'done a course' and everyone else is 'self-taught'. Actually, you have to already be able to write before they let you in. You have to want to write so badly that you will give up everything else for a year and immerse yourself in it. The difference between the MA and just going it alone is the friends you make, the support you get from teachers and supervisors, the permission you get to live and breathe your creativity for a while.
Most New Zealanders remember September 12, 2001, as the day they woke up to news of the World Trade Centre coming down. I also remember it as the day I was due to hand out copies of my folio for a class critique the following week. We all gathered at the door of the IIML and said nothing. I remember being terrified that suddenly novels wouldn't matter anymore, least of all my little story - how could they? But I got as thoughtful and generous a critique as I could have hoped for.
I found my mojo; I found the certainty I was looking for. I made life-long friends. Everyone in my year has gone on to have books published or plays produced. Some have won awards. Many of us still meet regularly to discuss each other's work, to toast each other's successes and to commiserate and bolster when necessary.'
Bio: After graduating, Rachael decided to abandon the manuscript she worked on during the MA year, and started something new. In July 2006 she published her first novel, The Sound of Butterflies, a story which travels from Edwardian London to the boom days of the rubber trade in the Brazilian jungle.
The novel shot into the New Zealand best-seller list and remained within the top three for twelve weeks. It was greeted with high praise from local critics ahead of its release in the US and USA, and went on to win the Best First Book of Fiction Award at the Montana Awards in 2007.
Reviewers from Book Page, USA Today and the Washington Post proved equally enthusiastic, as did the Tampa Tribune: 'Rachael King's elegant, understated writing style takes the reader from the parlors of England to the wilds of Brazil... The Sound of Butterflies enchants and informs even as it transports the reader to times and places we would like to disavow but make up our emotional and scientific heritage.' The novel is now being translated into five languages.
In 2008, Rachael was awarded the Ursula Bethell writer in residence at Canterbury University, where she has been at work on a new novel which involves the intriguing combination of tattooing and taxidermy.
Branwen Millar (Scriptwriting stream, 2006)
Branwen writes: 'The scriptwriting stream of the MA is world class - the skills learnt, the people met, the support I continue to receive. Since graduating, being a playwright suddenly seems both a possible and desirable career. The writing will probably never get easier, each play is as hard as the last, but one of the most valuable things I learnt through the MA was how I work as a writer, and how that's probably different from every other writer out there.
Having my professional debut at Circa Theatre shortly after graduating was a huge thrill. Working with others who value what you write enough to invest their time, talent and money in putting it on, was exciting and humbling. As the possible opportunities continue to present themselves to me, I don't feel as if we have enough playwrights in Aotearoa. People are desperate for more good scripts which is why Ken's course is so vital to the future of our theatre.
Through my MA year I developed an invaluable un-romantic view of writing. Just because someone asks you to write something doesn't mean it will happen. Just because it happens, doesn't mean it will happen the way you want it. Playwrights are part of a much larger beast, we're in this along with everyone else - and that's exciting.'
Bio: Branwen Millar was introduced to playwriting during her undergraduate degree in Theatre, Politics and Development Studies when she went on an exchange to the University of California Santa Barbara in 2005. There she was taught playwriting by American playwright Naomi Iizuka, and wrote her first play, Noisy Shadows, which was produced as part of the University's annual New Plays Festival and won the Dorothy E Corwin Award for Best One Act. Noisy Shadows received a second production at BATS Theatre in 2006.
Branwen's second play, Armslength, won her the Playmarket-run NZ Young Playwrights' Competition, then premiered at Circa Theatre in January 2008. 'Branwen Millar is clearly a new playwright going places. Her Armslength is a lively and entertaining drama that snaps and crackles with sharp, witty dialogue, an interesting range characters, and a climactic scene that is visually and dramatically exciting.' - Dominion Post.
Branwen's third play, Swan Song, was part of the 2008 Young and Hungry Festival of New Works at BATS Theatre, and was her first professional commission.
She is the 2008 Writer in Residence at the Robert Lord Writer's Cottage in Dunedin.
Paula Morris (2001)
Paula writes: 'My year in the MA course meant big changes: my husband and I moved from New York City to New Zealand, where I hadn't lived since 1985. In New York I had no time at all for my own work: the novel I'd begun was still in frustrating fragments. Bill offered me a place in the course in November. By January - robbed by our movers and ripped-off by our landlords; we even missed our flight to LA - we were travelling to Wellington, and I had vague ideas about another book.
Though I'd met Bill briefly in New York, I wasn't sure what to expect of the course. Quickly I discovered that it was very different in tone and personnel from my classes at the Writer's Voice at the 63rd Street Y. Discussions were more thoughtful and reasonable. Nobody appeared to be insane. Bill was a quiet presence, both reassuring and unsettling, insistent on one thing only: that he got to sit looking out at the stunning view.
Bill assigned deadlines, and my name was first. This meant I had to get to start turning those vague ideas into a novel. Many of my memories of that year involve me sitting - cold, obsessed, endlessly typing - in the dining room of our rented house on Adelaide Road; the other memories involve pouring the coffee in class, and stealing glances at the storms rolling in from the south.
That year I made some good friends, particularly Rachael King, Jennifer Levasseur, who's now in Melbourne, and Anna Smaill and Carl Shuker, now in London. I wrote a novel, Queen of Beauty, as my portfolio project, and completing it made me determined to keep writing - something I was able to do, thanks to the Schaeffer Fellowship, at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.'
Bio: The manuscript for Queen of Beauty won Paula both the Adam Foundation prize, and the Glenn Schaeffer Fellowship.
When the novel came out the following year, it was enthusiastically reviewed. The New Zealand Herald wrote: 'Morris writes with great affection and empathy for her huge list of characters - it is (the central character's) haunting grace and humour which provide a rich, almost spiritual anchor in this masterful work.'
In the seven years since completing the MA, Paula has graduated with an MFA from Iowa, and published two further novels, Hibiscus Coast (2005), and Trendy but Casual (2007). A short story collection, Forbidden Cities, is due out in October 2008.
Paula now teaches creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans. She maintains close connections with New Zealand, writing regularly for the Listener, and was nominated as one of three finalists for the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year 2008 award.
Paula was one of the 2008 recipients of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. She intends to work on a novel about her Ngati Wai ancestor, Paratene Te Manu, during her time in Auckland. Visit Paula's blog and website.
Carl Shuker (2001)
Carl writes: 'I began the MA after 18 months in Japan and my weltanschauung completely blown apart. I was 27, troubled, sceptical, defensive and a little shellshocked in person, not very easy to get along with, and but also, given the opportunity to live cheaply and write fulltime, determined whatever to make the most of the time and do something amazing. (Wild ambition is also sometimes not an instantly charming quality in person, I discovered, but don't let that put you off.) My submitted project idea was three interlinked novellas, something I returned to (I now see, with some surprise) later with www.threenovellasforanovel.com, but I went for something larger. That Bill put up with me, that he encouraged me, is testament to his big soul and patience and his love of good work.
I made best friends for life with the women on the MA, and had some of the best times of my life on the MA - not just in class (perhaps rarely in class - three hours with nine people questioning your every novelistic step in a non-smoking environment is not easy) but in bars, at parties, smoking on stoops, talking books, determination, ambition, emotion, style, technique, the future, and it's because the MA rewards you with exponential returns on what you put into it.
Yes, psychosomatic illnesses of crippling intensity developed as deadlines approached; yes, teeth were ground to mealy shale; yes, near-insanity and charmless alcoholism were a constant threat. But also a couple of times a week I went to talk to people who were going through the same thing, and Bill made calming jokes and quiet, useful and somehow (how?) charming criticisms, and I was introduced to Grace Paley's work, and I lost some of the meaner parts of myself in learning how to try to help another writer make something she loved better.'
Bio: Carl's 'something larger' was a draft of The Method Actors. The novel was published by Shoemaker & Hoard in the USA in 2005. Reviews across the States invoked William Gibson, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon in describing the book, hailing its amibiton and scope: 'Brash and fearless, The Method Actors is a self-conciously postmodern challenge to our perceived reality and its fictional depiction,' said the New York Times.
Carl was awarded the Prize in Modern Letters for this debut in 2006. He published a second novel that year, The Lazy Boys, written prior to the MA. Carl is currently working on a film script for this book, described by one reviewer as 'Creepy. Awful. Morbid. A must-read.
Carl's latest project is Three Novellas for a Novel. At the time of writing, the three interconnected novellas were available online for free, or for as much as the reader wished to pay, downloadable from www.threenovellasforanovel.com.
Carl is currently living and working in London. He travels to Japan in late 2008 to take up a JENESYS Artist Residency for two months.
Anna Taylor (Writing for the Page stream, 2006)
Anna writes: 'I look back on my MA year with a feeling of wonderment. Never have I been so productive; so invigorated by the process of getting words down onto the page. At the time, of course, each week was peppered with the anxiety of trying to write a book in eight months. My classmates and I passed what would otherwise have been many a productive hour drinking tea, eating, looking down on the harbour, and worrying about word count (or, for the poets, how many poems you actually needed to make a "'collection.") We were a community of worriers though, and it was this sense of all being in it together that made the anxiety bearable, almost invigorating. The members of my MA class have all become dear friends - to this day (five years on) we still meet once a month to read and critique each others work, and are in regular email contact, constantly championing the small or large achievements of our group. It is what I imagine being in a sports team to be like, without the running around, or (in my case) dodging of the ball.
Of course, we would have been lost without the man who calmly, but supportively, helped us make it to our destination. As a tutor and supervisor, Bill had endless energy, patience and good humour. His guidance and advice would never be given in an authoritative manner, but in a gentle, almost offhand way, as if he was simply a passenger, sitting beside you while you were at the wheel, offering directions in such a way that made you feel that you were the one who already knew the turn to take anyway.
It is an extraordinary and blessed luxury to be able to surrender yourself to the writing process for a year (with all the horrors of writer's block and looming deadlines roaring along behind you.) More than an institute, the IIML feels like a community - of writers and teachers; people who are passionate about writing, and books, and the process of making them come alive.'
Bio: Anna Taylor completed the MA in 2006, winning the Adam Prize for her portfolio of stories. This book went on to become Relief, published by Victoria University Press in 2009, and the winner of the NZSA Hubert Church Award for Best First Book of Fiction in 2010. Anna was the recipient of the 2009/10 Todd Writers Bursary, which enabled her to spend time writing the first draft of a collection of three long short stories, which she is still working on.
Pat White (Writing for the Page stream, 2009)
Pat writes: 'I was selected, following my second application, for the 2009 MA "Writing for the Page" intake. I had a great time, ended up with a book and more importantly, ongoing friendships from an environment to return to – plus the memory of Chris Price my supervisor smiling at me and saying, "you could dig a little deeper here" while holding my writing in her hand. Maybe it is the digging deeper that uncovers the real stuff, causing us to grow as writers while we are at IIML within the supportive atmosphere that exists in Schaeffer House. An initial proposal to write poetry and short prose didn't last long. Instead, by October I'd written a selection of memoir essays demonstrating, if nothing more, a capacity for sustained work and the worth of trying something new.
During the year I also managed to qualify for national superannuation, so feel qualified in saying "if you’ve got it in mind, have a go no matter what age you are". A year spent with like-minded writers, where work is discussed openly, books are talked about from many perspectives, and you are challenged to extend your literary boundaries is an opportunity like no other.
Bio: A mixture of teaching, librarianship, farming a variety of itinerant jobs, plus decades of oil painting and poetry writing all precede Pat's arrival at the MA in Creative Writing. In 2006 he started fulltime university study, without a Bachelor's Degree after doing his first part-time papers in 1963. He emerged at the end of 2009 with a Master of Fine Arts from Massey and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Victoria, something that he says "is still surprising". Since finishing at Victoria, the MA essays have been published in How the Land Lies; of longing and belonging.
He received a residency at Robert Lord Cottage in Dunedin taken up within days of handing in his MA folio. He was awarded the 2010 Writing Residency at Randell Cottage in Wellington, where he worked on a memoir/life of West Coast author/teacher/environmentalist Peter Hooper. A draft of that work has been finished in 2011. At present he is researching material for writing with a working title "Watershed stories" – toying with any ambiguity possessed by the word "watershed", in issues of water, time and place.
Pat White's New Zealand Book Council profile
Tim Worrall (Scriptwriting stream, 2007)
Tim writes: 'So I say to my lovely wife - "What would I need to go and do the MA at Victoria for? I know what a film looks like – I've been watching and waiting all my adult life to make 'em".
"Watching, waiting - so how about putting some structure around that, Hitchcock?"
Four months later I'm sitting in a room at IIML with ten brand new mates - talking, laughing, arguing and best of all - learning. Learning how much I still had to learn. Relearning the stinging, ringing feeling of being humbled and then starting anew.
Ken's beautifully designed course gave me the kick in the arse I needed. It gave me strategies to keep going no matter what. It gave me a gentle but firm understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. I got a New Zealand script-writing god as a supervisor and friend. I got busy and got out a feature script of my very own.
There's still a way to go but we're traveling much faster now – what with a map in the glove box and some good directions from mates.
No reira, te mihi ano atu ki a koe Ken koutou ko Graeme me nga kaimahi o IIML kua horahia mai o koutou pukenga o koutou tautoko o koutou manaki, kia tipu ai, kia puawai ai enei kakano kei waenga i a matou nga tauira.'
Bio: Tim was born in 1964 and grew up in Devonport, Auckland.
Since finishing a Fine Arts degree at Elam, University of Auckland in 1989, he has worked as an artist. His primary inspiration is his Tūhoe and Matātua heritage. Projects have included: a number of large public carvings and paintings in the Eastern Bay of Plenty; the creation of flags for Ngai Tūhoe and Ngāti Awa; redesigning the Whakatane Museum; a variety of community and iwi graphic design work; various exhibitions of carving and painting; marae restoration; stone jewelry etc.
Through the later part of the 90s and the early 00s he focused his energy primarily on tā moko as well as returning to an old art school interest in television/film (he completed his BFA by making a short 16mm film, Savage Rites). The moving picture work included positions as: writer and sometime director on the Māori children's TV show Pukana ; storyliner and Māori consultant for South Pacific Pictures on Shortland Street, Jackson's Wharf and Whalerider.
Tim is currently redrafting a feature film script titled Piki Whara. He is married to Taria Tahana with whom he has two sons: Tiki (5) and Tanu (2). They live in Rotorua.