School of English and Media Studies Partners with the New Zealand Festival of the Arts

The School of English and Media Studies 2014 Writers Read series kicked off in style last week with a partnership with the New Zealand Festival of the Arts Writers Week. Massey partnered with Writers Week to host New Zealand events in Wellington and Palmerston North for world-renowned Indian-born Canadian novelist, Jaspreet Singh. School lecturer, Stuart Hoar, also launched his new play, PASEFIKA, at Circa Theatre as part of the wider festival, and two new novels by School tutors were launched at Writers Week, Tina Makereti’s Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings and Mary McCallum’s Dappled Annie and the Tigrish

Massey’s School of English and Media Studies 2014 Writers Read series kicked off in style last week with a partnership with the New Zealand Festival of the Arts Writers Week. Massey partnered with Writers Week to host New Zealand events for world-renowned Indian-born Canadian novelist, Jaspreet Singh. In Wellington Jaspreet joined Senior Lecturer, Dr Ingrid Horrocks, in conversation about his latest novel, Helium. The novel sifts through the anti-Sikh pogroms that took place in India in 1984 and “teases out the complicated intersection of family, love, politics, and hate” (Publishers Weekly). The event was held at the Embassy Theatre and attracted a large, attentive audience. The School also brought Jaspreet to Palmerston North, where he spoke at the Palmerston North City Library on Friday night, also as part of our Writers Read series.

The School’s own media script writing lecturer, Stuart Hoar, was also a featured guest at Writers Week, and followed this by opening the Wellington end of our Arts on Wednesdays events in Wellington, now in their third year. Stuart talked about his new play, PASEFIKA, playing at Circa Theatre as part of the wider New Zealand Festival of the Arts.

Two of our current teaching staff also launched and celebrated new books during Writers Week: Dr Tina Makereti’s launched her first novel, Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings and Mary McCallum her first novel for children, Dappled Annie and the Tigrish. Tina and Mary have both been working for the School of English and Media studies for many years, and have contributed to our fiction and life writing papers. Our in-coming Artist-in-Residence, Alice Miller, also a former Massey tutor, launched her first collection of poetry, The Limits.

In other Massey involvement with the 2014 Writers Week in Wellington city, Dr Horrocks hosted an edgy event on Jane Austen with Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, Terry Castle, once described by Susan Sontag as “the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today”; while Professor Peter Lineham, of the School of Humanities, convened a conversation with Diarmaid MacCulloch, one of Britain’s most distinguished living historians and Professor of History of the Church at the University of Oxford.

Congratulations to all involved!