2021 festival programme

Our Covid 19 guidelines

thursday 28th october

5.30pm – 6.30pm
Festival Opening: Seven Years In Typeset
Writers Block
Come crack the proverbial champagne over the good ship NZYWF! We’ll be celebrating with bevvies, nibbles, live music, and a selection of tasty performances. Your MC for the evening is the incomparable Marea Colombo (Improsaurus).
6.30pm – 7.30pm
The Poetry in Everything: St Hilda’s Showcase
Writers Block
Join the St Hilda’s community to celebrate work generated by their students during the Creatives in Schools programme. Sculpture, dance, drama, painting, and collage come together to prove there is poetry wherever you look for it.

friday 29th october

12.30pm – 2.30pm
Put Your Body Into It: Somatic Writing Rituals
Writers Block
* registration required
For writers of any and all genres! In this workshop, poet Rushi Vyas will lead participants on a short walk where they will enact a somatic ritual. Back at the venue, participants will write in response to the ritual, and discuss how incorporating body exercises into your writing practice can enliven your creativity. No experience is necessary.
Made possible with the generous support of University Book Shop (Otago).
Register here
3.00pm – 4.30pm
Getting Our Feet Wet: Storytelling for Sea-Level Rise
Writers Block
In the face of rising sea levels, how do we engage our writing practice with the world around us? In this hybrid conversation/workshop, researcher Zoë Heine will be joined by Hana Pera Aoake, Jordan Hamel, Robyn Maree Pickens and Lily Holloway to discuss their practice. Audience members will have a chance to share some kai, have a chat with the panellists, and create their own sea-level rise story.
Made possible with the generous support of Auckland University Press.
* Will be podcasted with special thanks to Otago Access Radio
5.00pm – 7.00pm
RUA:TWO
Writers Block
* Will be podcasted with special thanks to Otago Access Radio
This NZYWF marks two whirlwind years since the launch of the Ōtepoti Writers Lab – making it high time for a birthday party! We invite you to a showcase extravaganza of writing in different formats, from prose to performance poetry and beyond.
Made possible with the generous support of the Ōtepoti Writers Lab.
8.00pm – 10.00pm
Wordmaster: Festival Smackdown
Morning Magpie
* registration recommended!
Test your literary knowledge in this game show-style smackdown! Form a team and let MC extraordinaire Reuben Crisp (comedy legend) guide you through rounds spanning every format from pub quiz to spelling bee to charades. Food and drinks available for purchase. Made possible with the generous support of Morning Magpie.
Register here

saturday 30th october

10.00am – 12.00noon
How to Speak Words and Influence People: Spoken Word Workshop
Writers Block
* registration required
National Slam Champion, poet, and toast enthusiast Jordan Hamel is here to teach you how to talk. Not really, but he IS here with a fun and friendly workshop to help you explore different ways of performing your words, prep for the Slam Comp, and answer the question: what is spoken word anyway? No experience is necessary.
Register here
12.30pm – 2.30pm
Authentic and Accessible
Writers Block
* registration required
Playwright Dan Goodwin takes participants through the ins and outs of writing mental health and disability theatre. What is ‘accessible’ theatre? How do we make work which is genuinely ‘authentic’? Deconstruct what it means to weave accessibility into narrative and ground our stories in the communities they emerge from. No experience necessary.
* Will be podcasted with special thanks to Otago Access Radio
Register here
3.00pm – 4.30pm
The Secret Garden: A Starling Celebration
Writers Block
Join Louise Wallace (Starling co-editor), in conversation with Lily Holloway (Starling author), Jackson Nieuwland and Carolyn DeCarlo (Starling interview subjects), and the two writers who have been undertaking their Starling micro-residencies in the Dunedin Botanic Garden for the duration of the festival. Equal parts micro-residency wrap-up and celebration of the newest issue of Starling, this event will treat guests to both a performance and a lively discussion about what it means to be a young writer today.
Made possible with the generous support of Starling.
* Will be podcasted with special thanks to Otago Access Radio
5.30pm – 7.00pm
Playing with the Trouble: Writing Gender and the Body
Writers Block
How does society place limitations on the way we live in our bodies? How might we resist and refuse this through writing? In this reading and kōrero, Jackson Nieuwland, Whina Pomana, Hana Pera Aoake, and Dan Goodwin discuss writing, fluidity, gender, and bodies.
Made possible with the generous support of Compound Press.
* Will be podcasted with special thanks to Otago Access Radio
8.00pm – 10.00pm
Otago Poetry Slam
Morning Magpie
* registration recommended!
Open to slam poets of any age, with the winner being sponsored to represent Otago at the National Slam. The competition will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the National Slam, and poets may be required to read up to three poems. With your MC Jordan Hamel (2018 National Slam Champion) and calibration poet Emer Lyons.
Made possible with the generous support of Morning Magpie.
Register here

sunday 31st october

12.00noon – 2.00pm
Wake ‘n’ Make
Writers Block
Make a zine of your very own while you peruse the stalls at the Dunedin Zinefest! An open space to come hang, have some fun, and make some stuff. We’ll bring the supplies, you bring the inspiration!
11.00am – 3.30pm
Dunedin Zinefest
Writers Block
Come browse, buy, and blow your own mind at the annual Dunedin Zinefest! Sample the DIY wares of local poets, illustrators, artists, designers, and zinesters, while being musically entertained by local legends Laney Blue! Cash recommended.
Made possible with the generous support of Radio One 91fm.
New Zealand Young Writers Festival is proudly produced by Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust