"When I got pregnant a number of writers and painters explained to me that I would no longer paint. That my creativity would now reside in my womb, that only women who didn't have children persisted in the arts." Has a New Zealand living artist had a more remarkable career than painter Jacqueline Fahey? 90 and still painting and writing, Jacqueline graduated from Ilam the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1950 and has been painting ever since. Then, she was a contemporary of fellow women trailblazers like Rita Angus and Doris Lusk. Indeed back in 1964, Fahey and Angus organised what is considered to be the first deliberately gender-balanced exhibition of artists in New Zealand at the Centre Gallery in Wellington.

The Modern Maori Quartet is one of three New Zealand acts handpicked for a showcase season in New York early next year at the historic off-Broadway SoHo Playhouse. The other two are the slam poetry style show Wild Dogs Under My Skirt and The Contours of Heaven - real stories of six young people from Te Matau a Maui, Hawkes Bay.

Weng Wai Chan's debut novel Lizard's Tale is a World War Two spy story with a difference. Set in Singapore in 1940, its heroes are young people, and it's told from a non Western point of view.

On his 50th birthday, Wellington artist Bryce Galloway decided it was high time to have a mid-life crisis. He got his first tattoo, and then posted a "bandmates wanted" flyer, with a view to attempting to start a gig with a new band every month of his 50th year.

Photographer Peter Peryer has shared his life story, and his wry reflections on his chosen art form with documentary maker Shirley Horrocks. Neither realised that the film that came out of it would be his swansong, with Peter's sudden death in November last year at the age of 77 Peter Peryer The Art of Seeing is about to premiere at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

If there's one person who doesn't need to be convinced about the importance of sound in films, it's the presenter of a radio programme about movies! Sound and pictures have been two halves of the impact ever since Al Jolson told a shocked audience "You ain't heard nothing yet."

Back in the dawn of New Zealand comedy, say the mid Seventies, very few people were making a living out of it. Fred Dagg, aka John Clarke, was a sensation on TV and as a live act. And Roger Hall had discovered the middle-class Kiwi theatre-going public, and put out hit after hit.

The recent student marches for action against climate change are a recent example of how this generation will take a stand on issues they deeply care about. It's a timely backdrop for a new play Auckland youth theatre company Massive has commissioned from Wellington writer and Arts Laureate Jo Randerson. Like A River stars five members of Massive's Nui Ensemble, which was also the starting point for the play's director Stef Fink. Lynn Fredeman speaks with Stef, as well as to one of the young cast, Elsie Polosovai. Stef signed up to Sam Scott's Massive Theatre Company almost a decade ago - though she says she got off to a bad start! Like a River premieres on the 23rd of July at Auckland's Basement Theatre before heading to Whangarei.

"The nonbinary individual is biologically nonbinary. The gonad does not determine gender. In the nonbinary individual's personal experience they have a deep hatred for their own body - promoted by the cultural signifiers that idealize certain types of bodies as male and certain types of bodies as female". These lines are taken from ransack, a book of poetry by essa may ranapiri, who writes candidly about their life, their observations and their frustrations as a nonbinary individual in a society that may be more aware of the term, but not necessarily what "nonbinary" really means. The collection is peppered with letters essa writes to a fictional character they relate to - Virginia Woolf's gender-fluid character "Orlando". Lynn Freeman talks to essa. essa may ranapiri's poetry collection ransack is published by Victoria University Press.

The Australian theatre director in charge of this country's biggest theatrical spectacular - the World of Wearable Art (Wow) - says he's hugely impressed with his Kiwi crew's can-do attitude to any challenges he throws their way. Andy Packer has to take risks with Wow because after 30 years audiences have seen a lot of jaw-dropping spectacle and it gets harder to impress them. Andy is the co-founder of Adelaide based theatre company Slingsby, that's toured to 12 countries as well as around Australia, and picked up a cabinet full of awards along the way. Andy Packer won't share specifics of this year's event other than dropping hints about ancient monuments and ice-caves. But he talked to Lynn Freeman about Slingsby's success story, and the fact they don't only produce Australian work: This year's Wow spectacular opens in Wellington in September.