Tauranga Writer’s Inc. are celebrating their 50th anniversary as an organisation supporting those engaged in all aspects of writing and publication. This year there is an ongoing programme of events, publications and exhibitions focusing on their members and their work. On the 23rd of March “Black & White & Read all over” a collaborative photographic exhibition opens at Creative Bay of Plenty community gallery.
Every year Tauranga Writer’s publishes an anthology of member’s work. ARTbop invited Auckland-based author, poet, songwriter, musician and reviewer, John Adams:-
An associated group of Tauranga Writers has published a collection of their short stories, short non-fiction pieces and poems. Byline 2016 is available through www.taurangawriters.org.nz
This attractively presented and illustrated volume (approx. 100 pages) contains work from 28 authors, selected by three: Jenny Argante, Marcus Hobson and Kinsa Hays. I applaud the publication of this volume which demonstrates a range of creative literary activity in the Bay of Plenty. We are a nation of writers. The level of encouragement, for contributors and other aspiring writers, derived from a satisfactory standard of publication such as this, cannot be underestimated.
Anthologies of this kind create too a useful social record. The preoccupations of these writers span many cultural concerns. The first tale conveys two viewpoints on Whakaari (White Island), one from an imagined elderly Maori, the other through a homework study by his teenage mokopuna. The volume ends with a poem in the voice of a European sailor of long ago expressing anxieties about cultural practices encountered in a South Pacific island. Such echoes still reverberate. Then there is science fiction, a futuristic matriarchy, the joy of a young child, mother-and-teenage-daughter angst, a poem about cot death, and comic tales: a range of imaginative endeavour finds representation here. Other examples of composition include extracts from novels in progress, short essays, and real life records such as the trip to Oamaru or family histories.
The energy of the contributors is to be commended. The selection, which showcases a range of compositional skills, demonstrates attention by each contributor towards the industry of writing; that search for the pared-down line, the apt metaphor, the well-built paragraph of happily-wrought sentences. Well done, Tauranga Writers.
[John Adams is an Auckland writer, author of Briefcase (AUP, 2011), winner of the Jessie Mackay Prize for Best First Poetry Book published in 2011, and the Elbow Stories (Steele Roberts, 2013).]
John’s band (a sextet) plays original compositions, song and spoken word “Don’t Judge Me” is available to play at private and public functions.
John Adams can be contacted at yellowskip@xtra.co.nz
ARTbop promotes….
Don’t judge me
at Karanga Plaza, The Viaduct, Auckland 26 March 2pm
What really makes a woman Feel good? Where could you catch the Unnamed Rumpelstiltskin Blues? And when that medical specialist assures you there’s No need to worry, do you relax? Truly? These important questions will be addressed in the Karanga Plaza, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland on Sunday 26 March 2 – 4pm when the sextet Don’t judge me performs.
The band performs works by New Zealand poet John Adams. Ranging through blues, social comment, lyrical pieces and misanthropic love songs, the music is produced by Hugh Clarkson in collaboration with John Adams.
Vocalist Cath Townsend twists the top off these numbers while Hugh Clarkson and Patrick Davidson work guitar magic. Kay McCabe underwrites the enterprise with her double bass and Pete Harbidge’s cornet and harmonica moods enhance the ambience. John Adams associates with the cajon.
It’s music with words. Entertaining, poetic and fun.
BLACK & WHITE & READ ALL OVER…
… is a classic riddle with several possible answers, one being a play on the same-sound words, red and read. If we take ‘red’ now to be ‘read’ the answer is a newspaper. Other popular answers depended upon adding something to what is typically black and white, coming up for example with an embarrassed nun, blushing scarlet, or a sunburned zebra.
The joke appeared in at least 21 collections of folk riddles published between 1917 and 1974. Now it has inspired a collaboration between Tauranga Photographic Society and Tauranga Writers to create an exhibition – and even, perhaps, a happening? – around that in-joke.
Why now? Well, Tauranga Writers was founded on 21st June 1967, the longest-running self-help group for writers in New Zealand, and is celebrating their Golden Jubilee this year with a series of events.
For writers, the best possible outcome to all those solitary hours at the keyboard is to be, literally, black and white and read all over – that is, in print, with black words on white pages, and selling widely and well.
So five photographers of high repute and members of the Tauranga Photographic Society will put a new twist on this old saying by creating portraits of a number of the present group of Tauranga Writers and exhibiting them as BLACK & WHITE & READ ALL OVER! Every writer’s ambition, and every writer also needs a great author photo for that back cover blurb to boost those sales!
And, with a computer kindly loaned by Technology Wise, and located in the Creative Bay of Plenty open space, Tauranga Writers is issuing a challenge set to go worldwide. Long-time member Bryan Winters, explains.
“This occasion also allows us to hopefully create a new category for the famous Guinness Book of Records, which already has a category ‘most artists contributing to a single painting.’ We’re inviting Bay of Plenty locals to contribute to a new category, ’most writers contributing to a single book.’ We’ll then issue a global challenge to beat whatever record we set here in Tauranga.”
How will this be done.
We’re creating A People’s History of the Bay of Plenty, with a number of chapter topics to choose from. We want as many people as possible to write 200 words and yes, we will publish the book, and we hope it, too, will be black and white and read all over. Names of contributors will go on the cover and it will be available throughout the English-speaking world. You’re invited to add your own contribution by following the instructions you’ll find at https://www.bopbook.com/.
To make it extra special, and to emphasise that special relationship that writers develop with artists, illustrators and photographers, we’ve invited Ocean Patrice, formerly of Maketu, to create a montage of colour scenes from the Bay of Plenty to complement the portraits from Tauranga Society of Photographers. This will be Ocean’s inaugural exhibition, and we’re thrilled that she’s been so willing to join us in this collaboration of words and photos.
The New Zealand Society of Authors has announced 2017 to be The Year of the Authorpreneur. That means not only being able to write best words in best order, but also knowing how to work with other professionals, such as photographers. Ocean’s photos will be on display and for sale during the exhibition, and will also feature in A People’s History of the Bay of Plenty as an example of that kind of collaboration.
BLACK & WHITE & READ ALL OVER will run for two weeks from 23rd March in the Simpson Grierson Gallery, Creative Bay of Plenty (preview on 22nd March.) On that night, we’re adding further to the fun by asking those who attend to take home a balloon – naturally, black or white or red – with a brief message in it about the exhibition and a quote from one of the writers portrayed. We’re asking our guests, “Please release this balloon on your way home,” and it will be interesting to see where they end up.
CONTACTS:
Diane Hume-Green Tauranga Writers Tel 027 945 958 Email teamhume@kinect.co.nz www.taurangawriters.org.nz
Ocean Patrice Tel 022 089 79 50 Email content@oceanpatrice.com https://oceanpatrice.com/
Bryan Winters Tel:021 377 937 Email: wintersb@xtra.co.nz https://www.bopbook.com
Te Weranga – the Bush Campaign.
The continuing acknowledgement of colonial government attacks on outlying Tauranga Maori settlements. On 5th April 2017 at 5.30am on April 8th 2017 there will be a dawn ceremony to dedicate a memorial pou at the Puketoiki Reserve Whakamarama to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Bush Campaign in the district. There will then be a whakanoa and breakfast, a powhiri and retelling of the events of Te Werenga at Tawhitinui Marae. The day will conclude with a Hakari in the early afternoon.
(The ARTbop archive contains articles and images about the 150th commemoration of the battles of Gate Pa-Pukehinahina and Te Ranga and an article “Ihimaera’s gift: Waitangi Day 2017” where Rosemary Balu revisits Gate Pa-Pukehinahina and Te Ranga in the context of comments about the validity of promoting and preserving te reo Maori)
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