I cannot stop writing poems! … They come from the vocabulary of woods and animals and earth. From a letter from Sylvia Plath to her mother, 1956 Popular perceptions of Sylvia Plath tend to dwell on a deeply troubled version of the young poet due to her well-documented difficulties with depression and the morbid imagery […]
New Plymouth author Emma Hislop, (Kāi Tahu), will have her debut collection of short fiction, Ruin, and other stories, published by Te Herenga Waka in March. She is now working on her first novel. Why did you decide to start writing? Writing is my way of working things out. I write to work out how […]
New books from Kevin Jared Hosein, Pilar Quintana, Nona Fernández and Patrick Modiano. Kevin Jared Hosein’s novel HUNGRY GHOSTS (327 pp., Ecco, $30) takes place on a sugar estate in 1940s Trinidad and the language is as lush, moody and thrilling as the landscape. On the hill is the house of Dalton and Marlee Changoor, […]
After over a decade of judging thousands of short stories in our national writing competitions, our Writers College judges have compiled a list of eight tips to help you onto the shortlist. What exactly is a short story? A short story is not a commentary on current affairs, an article about collecting clocks or a […]
We talked to the author of one of the most banned books in the country about the unique power of books and why Black queer voices are so threatening to those trying to silence them. Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of books being banned or challenged […]
“I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim.” Salman Rushdie before the attack, with friend Abbas Raza in Brixen, in the Italian Alps. It was the worst Valentine’s Day present ever: on 14 February 1989, the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for the novelist Salman Rushdie‘s death. The author’s crime? […]
