Aotearoa’s Freshest And Most Fresh-faced Literary Festival

Aotearoa’s freshest and most fresh-faced literary festival is back!!!

Ekphrastic exploration; ‘Write like a Witch’; ‘Fern Fronds on Fire: Climate Poetry’; and ‘How to Write a Bad Play’ comprise just part of the literary buffet that is the sixth NZ Young Writers Festival.

We’ve scoured the country for the brightest, funniest, most original young wordsmiths and invited them to Dunedin, UNESCO City of Literature, for four days of workshops, panel discussions, performances, and more.

This year’s programme features poet-extraordinaire (and general hilarious person) Freya Daly-Sadgrove, columnist-about-town Verity Johnson, and an intimate evening of expression from Māori and Pasifika voices curated by Faith Wilson (Pantograph Punch) and essa may ranapiri.

Local writers including Abby Howells and Eliana Gray, along with other leading literary luminaries, will be certain to stimulate emerging writers and lovers of fine wordsmithing.

Once again the festival will host a writer in residence at the Robert Lord Cottage with poet/ painter Rebecca Hawkes spending four weeks developing their debut full-length poetry manuscript. Festival producer Gareth McMillan was impressed by the quantity and quality of applicants this year: “Rachel is exactly the type of writer we created this opportunity for – already accomplished and on the verge of greater things. I have no doubt the residency will assist them to take it to the next level”.

Last year’s resident Nathan Joe also makes a welcome return to the festival hosting a panel discussion ‘No Country for Young Playwrights’ - which will include another 2019 guest, Zac James making a Zoom appearance from Australia.

Our digital capability has been developed this year to enable people outside of Dunedin to participate with several events being live streamed.

Fest favs the Regional Slam Poetry Competition, Zinefest, and the Big Bad Book Quiz round out the programme along with a Flash Fiction competition – the latter being open to participants nationwide.

The full festival programme will be uploaded to the website on Monday 10th August but other highlights include:

• ‘Exquisite Corpses and Collaborative Choices’, an Ōtepoti Writers Lab workshop;

• ‘Don't read the comments: Navigating the modern media landscape’ a talk by Sam Brooks (culture editor for the Spinoff);

• ‘How to Speak Words and Influence People’ a slam poetry workshop by Jordan Hamel (former national slam champion).

The NZ Young Writers Festival is produced by the Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust.

All enquiries can be directed to Director Gareth McMillan at director@dunedinfringe.co.nz / 021 1072744.

Thanks to all our supporters and core funders Creative NZ, Otago Community Trust, and the Dunedin City Council.

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