New album release from our eldest (23) . . . who is a drummer. I've listened to it so much, I woke up at 3 a.m. hearing whole songs unspooling in my mind's ear (comforting: like the soft glow of a night light) . . . Free to sample here! #aotearoa #jazz #newzealand #wellington #dunedin

A piece commissioned a couple of months ago & just published. 📚📖 #pukapuka #aotearoa #fiction #poetry #Ireland #Ukraine www.thepost.co.nz/culture/3606...

Sign the petition: Protect Pay Equity www.together.org.nz/fbt_for_pay_...

I have a new essay/memoir piece, centering around a childhood friendship, up at North & South magazine. I hope it finds the readers who need it. 💛🌟💛🌟 #pukapuka #memoir #aotearoa #creativenonfiction #nonfiction northandsouth.co.nz/2025/04/23/s...

The students of Waitākere College have started this petition for the reinstatement of the original school lunches programme. (You know, the locally-made, fresh, nutritious and tasty one that was delivered on time.) Please sign the petition and share this post. petitions.parliament.nz/f4fff921-4e5...

The current school lunch programme is effectively worsening poverty in Aotearoa. Please help stop the slop. Petition below. #schoollunches #socialinvestment #education chng.it/fyJCNQ5ndm

Fantastic news for @louisewallace.bsky.social !! Very proud and delighted to see, and share, and shout about this news. Giddy with it! #pukapuka #Aotearoa #NZ #writers

Letting go a little party balloon here... #poetry #pukapuka #aotearoa #ockhams #writing #NZauthors

Music, satire, primates, & even some fairy lights! #aotearoa #music #jazz #kidsthesedays youtu.be/4oGqYvweedI?...

Let me read to you a little ... 📚📖📚📖 #poetry #pukapuka #aotearoa #authors #books #writers nzpoetryshelf.com/2024/12/12/p...

#pukapuka #books #nz newsroom.co.nz/2024/12/02/e...

The Spinoff brings facts, joy, wisdom, comedy, and tbh I've donated to support these things but also in the hope it reconsiders its decision to cut The Friday Poem!!

A guy who calls a spade an instrument for support & betterment, even as he bludgeons us with it. May such weasel words flop. #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

My new book of poems, Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit is launching this Thursday. Published by Otago University Press. Gorgeous cover art by Laura Williams. Design by Fiona Moffat. Edited by Anna Hodge. #pukapuka #Aotearoa #poetry #otagounipress

Janet Frame's 100th birthday celebrations continue all week! 🎂 This article raises several glasses to her writing and her steely determination. Thank you, Janet Frame, for your extraordinary example. 📚. #pukapuka #aotearoa #writers #JanetFrame #authors #fiction #poetry newsroom.co.nz/2024/08/28/j...

Would a collective of halls be a haul? Attentive, lyrical, and memorable National Poetry Day to all who celebrate it!

The image illustrating this story is definitely worth a share! Photo by Ivan Rogers. Story first published by Fish Publishing and now online at Reading Room. #pukapuka #fiction #shortstories newsroom.co.nz/2024/08/03/s...

Apopros of nothing other than the love of an Elizabeth Bishop poem (and the fact that it's winter here in the southern hemisphere):

The @pacificraft.bsky.social couplets here are sharp as a tack, and witty to boot. Fist bump to Paula Green, curator!

Remembering Vincent O’Sullivan. 🖤 #Aotearoa #pukapuka

😡I guess for hospital visits soon you'll need to take your own linen, water bottle, pillow, food, torch, camp chair & any painkiller you can afford. & perhaps either rent a hospital gown, cut up your own nightgown, or agree to nude surgery, to save on laundry costs. www.odt.co.nz/news/nationa...

Nowt so queer as taste: this is a beautifully sensitive work on grief, giftedness, intimacy and madness which, to my mind, would knock at least one other novel off the Ockham short list. Don’t forget about the long list, book lovers!! #aotearoa #pukapuka

A strong, bite-sized novel, or a narrative in poetic struck-matches. It reminds me of Janet Frame’s comment, that she thought of all her novels as experiments. Maybe genre-categories will turn to ash, too, in the hands of this short but punchy publication. #pukapuka #aotearoa

An enjoyably dry short story that captures many of the little modern-life obstacles that add up to a weird soul tinnitus.

We chatted with Gregory Bennett, whose story 'Heat Death of the Internet' was published in our 110th issue and struck a chord with readers, amassing over 1600 views in the first week! www.takahe.org.nz/latest-news/

Quick and easy form to fill in with feedback on NZ’s Covid response. In my case, it’s mainly gratitude that vulnerable family members were protected. Please help make sure the enquiry isn’t conspiracy hijacked …. haveyoursay.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz

Woodwork

My first piece of historical fiction is up at this link! It's about a startling family encounter with a real figure on the run in the 1900s. Dedicated to my maternal grandmother, Dorothy Pearson. 🥰👒🎩 🐎🍥 #pukapuka #aotearoa #Writers #Books #historical #fiction www.mindfood.com/article/shor...

Stunning. A contemporary lament with piercing clarity and musicality. #poetry #pukapuka #writers and #books

Just watched a vid of Luxon saying he isn’t personally aware of NZ’s obligations to prevent genocide & that the q should be directed to the relevant minister & I had a revelation: he’s behaving like a CEO where responsibilities are delegated to managers of departments who then report back to him.

A stunning, measured sequence I’m late to: it’s full of compassion, restrained anger, each poem quietly controlled and deftly laid down so it’s all like a winning hand in a high stakes card game. Wow. #poetry #writers #CorneliusEady

The DCC has brought Forbury Park! This is a former horse track in the heart of South Dunedin, built on an old wetland right. The potential for wetland restoration is massive and a sensitive transformation will be game-changing for one of NZs most flood-prone areas.

I have a new poem at this link ... this competition has some amazing financial support from generous sponsors. Happy Birthday, Robbie! #pukapuka #poetry #Aotearoa # RobbieBurns Www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/ro...

. Coming Up This Month Emptiness returns to the nest. You can just make out the little disappointments. Not birds exactly but quite like birds. And the dog still barks all the way to the beach. He always wanted better things, but is making do. .

Little snapdragon seed pods that look like riroriro or tiny finches. (3 of the beaks are pencil enhanced here, confession.)

Again, every time I read the news. #pukapuka #Aotearoa #poetry

I hoped to see orca or a southern right whale as an auspicious sign today on some birthday outings. And what I got was … this magnificent stinkhorn!

A wonderful book: a mojito of drollery, honesty, poignancy, wit & the bittersweet spectre of looking after elderly loved ones; all stirred in with wicked craft advice. ‘I don’t think writing is that hard, as long as you’re comfortable with failure on every single level.’

Ditto. The outright racism & the hypocrisy re hate speech is galling. As is having people so obtuse about the creative arts in roles of power over them: people who are actually using (abusing) the arts. E.g. the art of rhetoric, public speaking, attempts at persuasive language, even, hmmm, dancing.

Minister for Pollution, Increasing Climate Stress and Heat Death, Simeon Brown, says: stop trying to find productive solutions to the problems facing us. www.odt.co.nz/news/nationa...

Giving up smoking was incredibly hard for me. Best not start, ay. Sign the petition!

Top Pacific health leader resigns govt body roles to be a voice of conscience #nz

Shared with me by a former GP friend: on health equity in NZ #Aotearoa #politics www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/opin...

Good piece in the ODT about med school affirmative action pathways 'for Maori, Pasifika, and rural students, as well as those from low socioeconomic and refugee backgrounds'. I hope like hell that new govt. actually reads real data. www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

My programme has a position for a Lecturer in Māori Literature and Creative Communication - it would be fantastic if this ad could be shared widely across academic and Ao/NZ bluesky #kikorangi www.wgtn.ac.nz/about/workin...

Trying #shortstories #shortfiction & #ecofiction tags too. (Like trying new paper darts to see if they fly 😅)

I have a new story up @ Headland Literary Journal ... written as a bit of disobedience! I read some rules about flash & speculative fiction & wanted to see if I could break a couple of them: but still pull off a story. #flashfiction #fiction #writing #Aotearoa headland.org.nz/issues/issue...

"At the official unveiling of the coalition agreements last week, Luxon sounded like a chuffed CEO at an AGM. David Seymour sounded like the CFO. Winston Peters sounded like a comments thread." thespinoff.co.nz/politics/30-...

Cerberus in Suits