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Would love to see you at the Thistle next Monday (3rd September 2018 at 6pm), if you can make it, where there will be readings from this little beauty from Canterbury University Press – an anthology of flash fiction (very short stories), prose poems and things in between. I have two pieces in there and am delighted to find myself in such fine company. I’ve been dipping in and out of my copy since it arrived and it’s full of gems. There are some interesting essays in there too – from Tim Jones and others, some of whom will be discussing the “small form” on the night. Congratulations to editors Michelle Elvy, Frankie McMillan and James Norcliffe, and all the contributors.
Hope to see you there!
With Sue Wootton (left) and Maggie Rainey-Smith (centre) at the 2016 LitCrawl after-party
While you’re waiting to find out the make-up of New Zealand’s 52nd parliament, here’s something to while away your time: planning which events to go to in this year’s LitCrawl. The Crawl itself is on the evening of Saturday 11th November and I’ll be in a session called ‘I’m Making a Sign’ with Marianne Elliot, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Rhydian Thomas and Rachel Stewart, at Pegasus Books in Cuba Mall. Here’s the full schedule. I have the usual problem of wanting to go to everything, which is not a bad problem to have.
Intrepid organisers Pirate and Queen, aka Claire Mabey and Andrew Laking, have outdone themselves this year with an exciting range of associated events, like the ever-popular ‘Women of Letters’ and various LitCrawl Extended sessions at the City Gallery, including a Flash Fiction workshop with Irish writer Jan Carson. Can’t wait!
Getting ready to read with Gem Wilder, Emma Barnes and Chris Tse at LitCrawl 2016, Hashigo Zake.
On a dimly related note and while I think of it – I’ve had a number of short stories/ flash fiction pieces published online recently which can be found at these links:
I’ll be reading a very short story at the pretty flash Thistle (3 Mulgrave St, Thorndon) and so will some other writerly Wellington folk. It happens on 22nd June 2017 aka National Flash Fiction Day – the shortest day for the shortest stories. Might see you there!
…and here is the breakdown of fiction published in New Zealand in 2015, by the gender and ethnicity of the authors (as far as I can make out).
In terms of gender, women dominate in the fiction stakes, with 44 fiction books by women published in 2015 (59% of titles) compared with 30 men (40%). The ‘Other’ category refers here to a book jointly authored by a man and a woman.
Here is the pie chart:
In non-fiction, the proportions are reversed, with 13 titles (62%) by male writers and 8 (38%) by female writers (see below). So it kind of balances out. If you add fiction, non-fiction and poetry together, 82 titles were by women, 83 by men and one by both. Yay, right? (Note: I’ve left out a few categories, like Drama and Criticism, but included Letters & Autobiography).
An analysis by ethnicity, however, tells a miserable little tale indeed. Here is the pie chart for fiction:
Yep, that’s right, with 68 titles, Pakehā writers got 91% of the pie; Māori writers and Asian/Indian writers got 4% each with 3 titles apiece and Pasifika writers got 1%, with a single title (ie Albert Wendt wrote a book).
By way of comparison, in 2014, 88% of fiction titles were by Pakehā writers, 7% by Māori writers, 5% by Asian/Indian writers and none by Pasifika writers.
And for non-fiction, 85% of titles (18 in total) were written by Pakehās and 5% (1 title each) by a European/Jewish writer, a Māori writer and a Pasifika writer.
How do I know what ethnicity everyone is, I hear you cry. Well, I don’t know for sure. I visit at least 3 websites (author pages and so on) and look for clues. So there may be some undercounting. If a writer does not describe themselves as Māori, Asian or Pasifika and does not mention an iwi affiliation, I have counted them as European/Pakehā.
One last pie: all fiction, non-fiction & poetry titles for 2015. 90% of titles were by Pakehā, 4% by Māori and 2% each by European/Jewish, Pasifika and Asian authors. What a lot of pie…
For the record, I’m female and Pakehā (I was born in the UK and grew up in England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand; I’ve lived in New Zealand since I was twelve.) Two of the books published in 2015 were mine.
I put this analysis together because it matters to me. Fairness matters. Having a national literature that represents our national population matters. Being able to read a diverse range of voices matters. Also, I’m curious (in more ways than one) and like playing with spreadsheets 🙂
My source for the books published in 2015 is the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. Previous posts on this subject can be found here:
https://janisfreegard.com/2017/01/07/nz-poetry-2015-by-gender-ethnicity/
https://janisfreegard.com/2011/07/29/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-part-2/
https://janisfreegard.com/2012/04/03/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-2008-2010-4/
https://janisfreegard.com/2013/03/23/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-an-occasional-series/
https://janisfreegard.com/2014/10/19/poetry-and-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-the-latest/
https://janisfreegard.com/2015/12/30/poetry-published-in-new-zealand-by-gender-ethnicity-to-2014/
https://janisfreegard.com/2016/02/08/nz-fiction-non-fiction-by-gender-ethnicity-2014/
Sometimes I buy a book and find myself wishing I’d written it (while at the same knowing I couldn’t, because, well, I’m someone else and I can only write the way I write – disappointing though that can be when I was hoping for something more like Jeanette Winterson or Haruki Murakami).
Louise Wareham Leonard (New Zealand-born but mostly New York-based) is one of those writers whose books I always wish I’d written. I loved her novels: Since You Ask and Miss Me A Lot Of and I’ve been just as impressed with her latest work, 52 Men (published by Red Hen Press).
52 Men is a series of vignettes involving main character Elise’s interactions with different men, followed by a longer piece concerning disturbing events from her childhood and teenage years. The vignettes would each stand alone as flash fiction, but together they form a mosaic of Elise’s life, each encounter building our understanding of her as a person. So you get the depth of character development you might expect from a novel, but in a series of snapshots. It’s an interesting technique and it works. In further crossing of genres, the author describes 52 Men as autobiographical fiction, which I take to mean somewhere between the remembered and the made up.
But wait, there’s more! Louise Wareham Leonard invited other women to record a short piece of their own writing about men and launched a series of podcasts. The recording I contributed (I Meet A Man in a Bar) was based on a piece I wrote twenty years ago and recently rediscovered. You can listen to 52 Men the Podcast on Soundcloud.
It never rains, but it pours… Hot on the heels of LitCrawl and Brooklyn, here’s another event I’m reading at, this time at Aratoi in Masterton. It’s a celebration of the work of artists, writers, dancers and musicians from all over the world who have had residencies at New Zealand Pacific Studio in the Wairarapa. The studio’s been going for 15 years now and I was very fortunate to hold the three-week Ema Saikō poetry fellowship there in 2014.
Aratoi (Wairarapa’s Museum of Art & History) is hosting an exhibition of works by former NZ Pacific Studio residents, including a video reading of a snippet of the long poetry sequence I worked on while I was there. Opening night is Friday 2 December 2016 (5:30pm) and there’s a special event on Saturday afternoon (3 December, 2 – 4 pm), featuring music by Leo & Karen Cappèl (Netherlands/NZ), Sarah Dill (USA) and Hemi Walker (NZ). The inimitable Tracy Farr will be reading a short story and I will read a short section from my poetry sequence.
If you’re in the hood and want to catch it, the exhibition runs from 3 December 2016 – 15 January 2017.
You can find Aratoi at 11 Bruce St, Masterton, Wairarapa
Saturday 3 December 2016 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Fancy some Brooklyn-inspired writing? Next Friday 25th November 2016, I will be reading from ‘The Year of Falling’ along with the excellent Maggie Rainey-Smith and the fantastic Jenny Bornholdt at the Brooklyn Deli (199-201 Ohiro Rd, Brooklyn, Wellington, NZ). There will be music from Wellington band The Brooklyns and wine & food from the Deli. Hope to see you there!
This Saturday, I’ll be at LitCrawl. If you’re in Wellies, you should be too.
I shall be reading at Hashigo Zake 25 Taranaki St at 6pm with the stunning line-up of Chris Tse, Gem Wilder and Emma Barnes.
Here’s our blurb:
When you write from a minority perspective, whether it’s your sexuality, your gender, your mental health or something else about you, there’s an expectation you’ll perform those parts of yourself.
We choose what parts of ourselves we offer, reveal and share. We decide what we gift of ourselves to the audience. We’re not just queer writers. We’re writers. We’re not just genderqueer writers. We’re writers. We’re not just mentally ill writers. We’re writers. We’re all of these things and none of them. Come along to hear some writing loosely organised along non-heterosexual lines across genders and experiences. We’re wrapping up ourselves as gifts and we’ll rip the paper too.
Featuring Chris Tse, Janis Freegard, Gem Wilder and Emma Barnes.
There are rumours that at least one cape may be involved and I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of a hat. But hey, if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there are are many other exciting LitCrawl options to choose from and you can read all about them here:
http://www.litcrawl.co.nz/litcrawl.html
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