Thursday, August 14, 2008

Here for your interest are some excerpts from the International Institute of Modern Letters latest Newsletter . If you would like to receive this e-mail newsletter on a regular basis, subscription is free, then email modernletters@vuw.ac.nz

So what is new?

Thanks for asking. We’ve added some new features to our website, including a Showcase page that profiles some recent graduates and their achievements, a Scriptwriting page designed for potential applicants to this stream of the MA, and a Gallery with photos of events such as our 2007 reading with US novelist Richard Ford,(illustrated left by Zach Trenholm), the New Zealand Post National Poetry Awards, and the 2008 Prize in Modern Letters.

And we’ve just produced a gorgeous (even if we do say so ourselves) new brochure outlining all the writing programmes on offer at Victoria. To receive a copy, send your name and postal address to modernletters@vuw.ac.nz, and put the word ‘brochure’ in the subject line – or telephone (04) 463 6854. And check out the new web pages here.

Summer writing workshops

Each summer top MFA graduates from the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop (alumni include Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Rita Dove and Mark Strand) lead workshops in aspects of fiction and poetry writing at the IIML. The 2009 workshops will run from 6 January- 20 February, and will meet for three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The application deadline is 10 November. Items 4. and 5. (below) describe the workshops on offer this summer. Full details here.

The Expanding Bookshelf

Sue Orr has just become the first prose writer from the 2006 MA workshop to publish a book, and we’re sure she won’t be the last. A former journalist, editor and speechwriter to Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, Sue is now based in Auckland – but last week she returned to Wellington to launch her short-story collection Etiquette for A Dinner Party (Vintage). Launching the book at Unity, Bill Manhire remarked that ‘If you want to know what a place called New Zealand looks like – where it is; also where it shouldn’t be and where perhaps it ought to be – then Etiquette for a Dinner Party will help you find out.’ More here.

Victoria Writer in Residence 2009

Applications are currently being invited for the position of Creative New Zealand / Victoria University Writer in Residence 2009. Writers in all areas of literary activity, including drama, fiction and poetry, New Zealand art, biography, history, music, society and culture, are eligible to apply.
Applicants should be writers of proven merit normally resident in New Zealand or New Zealanders currently resident overseas.
The appointment will be for twelve months from 1 February 2009 to 31 January 2010, with a salary of NZ$50,000. Applications close 30 September 2008. Writers may apply online.

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