Abby Letteri participated in this year’s MA in Creative Writing for the Page, where she completed down they forgot, a family memoir. She nicked the title of her manuscript from e.e. cummings’s poem, ‘anyone lived in a pretty how town’. Abby has previously published her poems, essays and one lone short story in North American literary journals. This is her first New Zealand publication.
Andrew Johnston lives in Paris, but visits sometimes. He is working on a new book of poems.
These poems were written while Anna Livesey was the 2003 Schaeffer Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. ‘Autumn Day’ is a very loose translation of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Bill Manhire’s most recent publication is the anthology The Wide White Page: Writers Imagine Antarctica. He directs the IIML at Victoria University.
Brigid Lowry has recently returned to New Zealand after 27 interesting years in Australia. She writes poetry and short fiction, and her fifth novel for young adults, With Lots of Love From Georgia, will be published by Allen & Unwin in February 2005.
Cath Vidler’s poems have appeared in Turbine ‘02 and Sport. Cath was one of the Turbine ‘01 editors and she is currently setting up a new online literary magazine called Snorkel.
Earle McCartney has completed an MFA in creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received a Teaching Writing Fellowship and a Glenn Schaeffer Postgraduate Award. He is currently leading a summer fiction workshop at the IIML. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia.
Elizabeth Smither’s latest collection of poetry is Red Shoes (Godwit: Te Mata Poet Laureate 3). Her novel, The sea between us was shortlisted for the 2004 Montana fiction award.
Emily Dobson has just completed an MA in creative writing at Victoria and is the winner of the Adam Foundation Prize for 2004. She has been published in various journals and lives in Wellington.
Hinemoana Baker is a writer, radio producer and singer-songwriter living on Wellington's Kapiti Coast. Her first collection of poetry, matuhi | needle, (Victoria University Press/Perceval Press) was launched in October 2004. Read more about her at: www.hinemoana.co.nz
Thanks to Radio New Zealand and Jason McClelland for the recording of her poem
James Brown lives in Wellington with his partner and two children. After a year as the 2004 Writer in Residence at Victoria University, Wellington, he has resumed life as a freelance copy-editor/writer. His fourth collection of poems – The Year of the Bicycle – is coming along.
Jen Crawford lives in Auckland. Her collection Admissions was published in 2000 by Five Islands Press and was shortlisted for the Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore awards. She moderates the poetry discussion list Poneme (www.poneme.org).
Kerri Mullen is an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. She was in New Zealand for a little while, but is now safely cradled in the cornfields again. Her previous work includes shouting from rooftops at passersby, but that pays very little.
Marty Smith is an ex-trackwork rider who has attended Poetry Workshops at the IIML with Greg O’Brien and Shannon Welch. This year, with the help of Damien Wilkins and the MA class, she has been writing a collection of poetry.
Megan Johnson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a recipient of the Glenn Schaeffer Award in Poetry. Her first collection of poems, The Waiting, won the 2004 Iowa Poetry Prize and will be published in April. In January, she will teach poetry writing courses at Victoria University.
Nic Gorman is a writer, actor, improvisor and is currently driving forklifts and packing boxes of meat. Nic just completed his MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University, where he thinks he wrote a novel
Pip Robertson was a member of the 2004 MA class at IIML. ‘National Costumes’ is part of the short story collection Conditions of the Skin, which she completed on the course.
Rachael King has recently left her job at Wellington’s wonderful Staple magazine to write full time. She has had several short stories published in anthologies, magazines and online, including at The God Particle. She is currently working on a novel about a butterfly collector, which, all going well, she expects to finish by mid-2005. She once won an award for selling advertising and her father said to her ‘Ah well, it’s not a book award, but well done anyway.’
Rachel Bush lives in Nelson. Her two books of poetry, The Hungry Woman and The Unfortunate Singer, are published by Victoria University Press. As part of the New Zealand Poetry Society’s ‘Poets in Workplaces’ scheme, she has been Poet in Residence at Wellington Hospital from September to December 2004.
Rebecca Lovell-Smith completed the MA in Creative Writing in 2002. She sells rubber ducks and cap guns by day, and is writing a never-ending story by night. She lives in Christchurch with her dog, two cats and husband.
Sonja Yelich lives in Auckland with her partner and four children. Her first solo collection, Clung, was published by Auckland University Press in 2004.
Stefanie Lash has just completed her BA in Art History and English at Victoria. She has undertaken several workshops at the IIML including the inaugural Iowa Workshop with Shannon Welch in 2003. Next year, as part of the MA course at the IIML, she will be working on a collection of poems about her family history.
Stephanie de Montalk will be the Victoria University Writer in Residence in 2005. Her third collection of poetry, Cover Stories, will be published by VUP early next year.
Sue is a lapsed physiotherapist and acupuncturist who lives in Dunedin. In 2003 she was awarded a mentorship under the NZSA mentor programme, and was shortlisted for the Lillian Ida Smith award. Her poetry has appeared in the NZ Listener, JAAM, Takahe, NZ Poetry, Bravado, Otago Daily Times and North and South. Work has been anthologised in NZ Poetry Society collections (2003 and 2004), and in the Dunedin anthology Under Flagstaff. Sue helps run ‘Upfront’, a monthly performance evening for women poets, and takes poetry workshops for kids – all of which is a whole lot more fun than physio!
Terry Thomas is English by birth but has been a Kiwi since 1973. Retired now, he lives in The Far North with his wife, two grandchildren, a dog, five cats and a small but fearsome horse named Cody. He has been writing fiction for years, has won a few awards, and has stories published in several anthologies and magazines in New Zealand. He has stories on-line at The Fiction Warehouse, The Southern Ocean Review, Storyglossia, and upcoming in The Summerset Review. He is currently working on something lengthy, though he doesn’t yet know what it’s about, and a collection of short stories linked in some way to Ninety Mile Beach.
Tim Holloway-Jones was a member of the IIML ‘Writing for the Page’ MA class in 2004, where he worked on a novel, Sugar. He’s been published in Landfall, Sport, Turbine, and the anthology The Picnic Virgin, but this is the first time he’s used his real name.
Tracey received an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University in 2003, and is currently a fiction student at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is planning to import grey squirrels to New Zealand when she returns, and will sell them at lakeside stalls in the summer months.
Tracy Farr writes short fiction. Her stories have been published in literary journals Sport, Westerly and Turbine 02, broadcast on Radio NZ, and recently anthologised in the Vintage collection, The Best NZ Fiction:1, edited by Fiona Kidman. She is currently settling into writing a novel.
