New Academy of NZ Literature to ‘promote homegrown writing’
The University of Auckland has launched the Academy of New Zealand Literature, a new body to promote NZ writing locally and overseas.
Author and Master of Creative Writing program convenor Paula Morris was awarded a NZ$130,000 (A$120,890) grant to establish the academy, which is based on the model of the Society of Literature in the UK and the German Academy for Language and Literature. To date it has 100 invited members, who must have written at least two books, and 16 fellows from other sectors of the industry.
The academy will ‘present a compelling narrative about New Zealand’s contemporary literary culture—fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction—to the world’ through an online and physical presence.
A ‘content-rich’ website will be ‘a showcase for [New Zealand’s] contemporary literature, a source of secondary research material through interviews and features, and for intellectual debate through conversations between New Zealand and international writers’. The academy will also run masterclasses, seminars and festival events; support a residency program; and provide students with mentoring opportunities with professional writers.
The academy received input from a writer’s advisory group that included Fiona Kidman, Vincent O’Sullivan and Eleanor Catton, and industry partners during the planning stages.
Tags: newzealand
Category: Local news
