Hinemoana Baker |
Photo by Gregory Crow |
(Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa Rangatira, Te Ati Awa, Kai Tahu, Ngati Kiritea no Ingarangi/Tiamani)
Hinemoana Baker is a writer, musician and radio producer living
on Wellington’s Kapiti Coast. Her literary debut is a collection
of poetry called ‘matuhi
| needle’. Unlike most first books, ‘matuhi’
will be published off-shore as well as locally: by Victoria University
Press in Wellington, and by Perceval
Press in Santa Monica, USA. Perceval Press is the publishing
house of Viggo Mortensen and Pilar Perez. Viggo is perhaps most
well-known for his role as Aragorn
in the ‘Lord of the
Rings’ films. ‘matuhi’ was launched on October
31, 2004 - along with Hinemoana’s first full-length album of
her own music, ‘puawai’.
Hinemoana Baker was born in Christchurch in 1968 and brought up
in Whakatane and Nelson. She has lived mainly in Wellington, with
stints in Rarotonga, Tauranga, Auckland, England and Africa. Hinemoana’s
writing career began in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she lived in 1990.
While she was there she helped to establish a group called ‘Zimbabwe
Women Writers’, and gave her first public reading with them.
Back home, she completed a BA degree at Wellington’s Victoria
University (Maori and Women’s Studies) and attended Bill Manhire’s
undergraduate writing programme. She In 2002 she was selected to
attend his Master’s programme. She graduated that year with
an M A in Creative Writing, and a manuscript that was to become
‘matuhi|needle’.
Hinemoana’s poetry, fiction and children’s stories have
been published in the literary journal SPORT, the anthology of Maori
writing ‘Te Ao Marama’, online
literary journal Turbine, The School Journal and in Bill Manhire’s
‘Mutes and Earthquakes’. Two of her plays were produced
for the ‘Te Reo Maori Season’ by Wellington’s Taki
Rua Theatre in the 1990s. In 1998 she was awarded the Stout
Research Centre/Reader’s Digest Writing Fellowship at Victoria
University.
Hinemoana is also a performer and producer of her own work. She
toured nationally with story-telling ensemble ‘Te Torino’
in 1997, has been performing her original music for eight years,
and has written and produced several documentary features for National
Radio.
In 2003, Hinemoana was one of three local poets to read alongside
Viggo Mortensen at a fund-raiser initiated by him to thank the city
of Wellington. Viggo’s interest in Hinemoana’s work was
sparked at this event. As her collection had already been accepted
for publication by Victoria University Press, it was agreed the
book would be a co-publication between the two publishing houses.
Her poem "A Walk with Your Father" was chosen for the online collection Best New Zealand Poems 2004.
Please visit Hinemoana's website www.hinemoana.co.nz