Global and local writing showcased in Turbine | Kapohau 2017

New work from emerging and established writers, including the latest graduates of Victoria University of Wellington's International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), features in online literary magazine Turbine | Kapohau.

The 17th edition of the magazine showcases work by the talented crop of writers emerging from the 2017 Master of Arts (MA) workshop. Tayi Tibble (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui/Ngāti Porou), winner of the prestigious Adam Foundation Prize for 2017, contributes a piece called ‘Poūkahangatus: An Essay about Indigenous Hair-Dos and Don’ts’. Sam Duckor-Jones, winner of the IIML’s Biggs Family Prize for one of the most promising poetry folios produced during the year, shares a poem ‘On Intimacy’.

Two further MA workshop members have already received awards for their writing this year.  Maria Samuela, who will be 2018 University Bookshop and Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage Trust Summer Writer in Residence in Dunedin, contributes an extract from Beats of the Pa’u, a short novel that explores her Cook Island heritage.  2018 Winston Churchill McNeish Writers’ Fellowship recipient Mia Gaudin also contributes an extract from her novel, The New Normal, written for her MA thesis.

Dr Rebecca Priestley, winner of the 2016 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science Communication, offers a warning on rising sea levels from her IIML MA thesis Ice Lens: 15 million years in Antarctica. Dr Priestley is a science writer and senior lecturer in ‘Science and Society’ at Victoria University.

Victoria alumna Faith Wilson and Victoria University/Creative New Zealand Writer-in-Residence Victor Rodger collaborate on ‘Silence’, an experimental performance poem, and Sugar Magnolia Wilson, co-editor of the literary journal Sweet Mammalian, contributes a sequence of letters.

Leading American poet and Harvard Professor of English Stephanie Burt spent the first month of 2017 in New Zealand, and contributes a powerful sequence called ‘Whale Watch’. Well-known New Zealand writers such as Elizabeth Smither and Victoria University Professor Harry Ricketts also feature in this issue.

“Turbine | Kapohau 17 not only showcases the depth and breadth of talent emerging from the 2017 MA workshop, but also offers a diverse and lively sampler of the wider writing community,” says IIML Senior Lecturer Chris Price.

Turbine | Kapohau 17 is co-edited by Claire O’Loughlin, Nicole Colmar and Tayi Tibble.

www.turbinekapohau.co.nz.