New Zealand Young Writers Festival

What is writing? Who is a writer? Drawing on their interdisciplinary backgrounds, writer and performer Josiah Morgan, poet and musician Isla Huia, comedian Janaye Henry, and playwright and journalist Sam Brooks unpack the multifaceted dimensions of storytelling across genre borders. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (21st - 24th September 2023)

Ōtepoti is Aotearoa’s only UNESCO City of Literature and is home to one of the top medical schools in the country. Is this an unlikely combination, or are there deeper connections between medicine, writing and creativity? We join festival Guest Curator and Rat World founder and editor-in-chief Jennifer Cheuk as she examines this topic with doctor Libby Whittaker and doctors-in-training Olivia Wright and Will Pudney, all of whom are writers. They explore how language and creativity influences medical practice, and what it means to be a creative in the professional world of STEM. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (21st - 24th September 2023)

A play, a song, a joke, a story – there’s always one work that comes to mind when you think of a writer. We join playwright Sam Brooks, comedians Abby Howells and Janaye Henry, and

poet Claudia Jardine as they chat about what it means – and how it feels – to have an audience come back to a single piece of work that may be long in a writer’s rearview mirror. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (21st - 24th September 2023).

Open to slam poets of any age, with the winner being sponsored to represent Otago at the National Slam. The competition will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the National Slam, and poets may be required to read up to three poems. With your MC Sara Hirsch and calibration poet Eric Soakai. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)

With No Other Place to Stand: An Anthology of Climate Change Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand recently published by AUP and the UNESCO Cities of Literature combining forces for The Heat is On: Young Writers on the Climate Crisis, is there a single bigger issue for young writers today? Rebecca Hawkes chairs a panel discussion with readings, featuring Shima Jack and Zinnia Hansen. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)

These playwrights were once young and hungry, ‘before twenty-five,’ and heralded as the future of this country’s playwriting. What happened next, and where are they now? Examining the grey area between ‘emerging’ and ‘emerged’, award-winning playwrights Ben Wilson, Amy Wright, and Nathan Joe, who have come through Playmarket’s b425 competition, discuss the realities of being young playwrights. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)

As triplet sisters clear the family attic after a shared heartbreak, old memories, buried secrets, and deep-set grudges are forced to the surface. A new drama by local playwright Amy Wright, written for her Honours year at the University of Otago, with the assistance of Amanda Martin. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)

James Joyce’s perverse love letters reveal that the terms ‘literary genius’ and ‘smut peddler’ are far from mutually exclusive. What do Aotearoa’s new generation of young writers - Josiah Morgan, Essa May Ranapiri, Samuel Te Kani, and Rebecca Hawkes - have to say about the fine line between erotic and profane? This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)

In this panel, art critics across different mediums - Mya Morrison-Middleton, Sinead Overbye, Essa May Ranapiri, and Samuel Te Kani - discuss the very nature of criticism. Who or what is criticism for? Who should critique who? And is Aotearoa too small for robust criticism? This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)

Our country's finest slam champions - Nathan Joe, Sara Hirsch, and Eric Soakai share their winning poems and spill the hot behind the scenes tea of what goes on during slam off. Past winners gossip and rant about what makes such a community-driven but competitive sport so enticing. This event was part of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival (29th October - 2nd November 2022)