Wellington City Libraries along with IP (Interactive Publications) invite you to the launch of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, on Monday 19^th October at 5.30 pm ground floor Central Library, Victoria Street. This amazing anthology is edited by poet, fiction writer, critic and publisher Mark Pirie and Tim Jones, poet and fiction writer, both Wellingtonians. There is an impressive number of New Zealand writers represented in this anthology. The readers for the evening include poets Janis Freegard, Nic Hill, Jack Perkins, Rachel McAlpine, Helen Rickerby, Robin Fry and the editors Mark Pirie and Tim Jones.

The seating will be available on a first come first served based.

So come along and join us for a wonderful evening of poetry.

Visit our libraries next week for a series of free workshops for everyone aged over 55.

Workshop topics include  gardening, yoga, estate planning, jewellery care, family history, antiques and more. Interested in writing for teenagers? Come along to a workshop with award-winning author Fleur Beale. Want to get into organic gardening? Come and listen to New Zealand Gardener of the Year, Sister Loyola. There’ll be lots of opportunities to ask questions, and if you’re an antiques enthusiast coming along to our Antiques Show and Tell session with Tinakori Antiques’ John Fyson, you can even bring along your family heirlooms and find out more about them!

Interested? Make sure to check out our Living Well Workshop Programme for a full schedule of speakers and topics.

Well known, and much acclaimed New Zealand writer Emily Perkins has won the fifth annual Believer Book Award for 2009 with Novel about my wife. The Believer Book Award winner is chosen by readers of The Believer magazine, from a short list of novels selected by the editors as representing the strongest works of fiction published in each year. Novel about my wife, although set in London, was completed in New Zealand when she moved from London to Auckland with her family. It can be described as a psychological thriller, ghost story or domestic drama and is her third novel, the others being, Leave before you go, published 1998 and New girl published in 2001.

Fiction writer and poet Emma Neale has been awarded the NZ Authors’ Janet Frame Memorial Award. This award is offered to a mid-career writer to assist in furthering their writing career. Emma is the daughter of well known fiction writers and editors Barbara Else and Chris Else and was born in Dunedin, where she still lives. She received her PhD from University College, London. Night Swimming, her first novel was published in 1998 and Sleeve-notes, her first collection of poetry was published in 1999. She has published three other novels, with Relative Strangers the most recent. Her most recent collection of poetry, Spark, was published early this year.

Wellington writer Jenny Pattrick has been awarded the $100,000 New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize. This pestigious award covers her travel and living expenses for six months in France with time to be spent at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, the south of France, where between 1919 and 1920, Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote. Previous winners include, Lloyd Jones (1989), Maurice Gee (1992) and Damien Wilkins (2008).

Jenny Pattrick is best known for her historical novels, The Denniston Rose (2003), Heart of Coal ( 2004) and Catching the Current (2005 ). Her latest work, Landings, is another historical fiction this time set along the Whanganui River.

The 2008 fifth edition of The Best New Zealand Fiction has this year been edited by the veteran short story writer Owen Marshall. Dame Fiona Kidman began the series in 2004, editing the first three volumes followed by Fiona Farrell in 2007. The latest edition includes a short story by Julian Novitz who won $10,000 for this year’s BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award for his story Three Couples. Previous winners of this award, Charlotte Grimshaw and Carl Nixon also have stories included in this fifth volume of stories, along with Craig Cliff a previous winner in the novice category. The most recently reveived New Zealand fiction can be found on My Library

In this month’s Maori Recent Picks, we get a glimpse of the history of seven Maori-Chinese families and the role they play today in New Zealand society in Being Māori-Chinese : mixed identities = He Māori-he Hainamana he tuakiri aha? = Mao li yi hua ren . Also, if you are interested in the Maori history of Nelson and Marlborough, do check out Te tau ihu o te Waka = A history of Maori of Nelson and Marlborough volume 2. This new volume “Te ara hou : the new society” describes Māori participation in European settlement society.  All this plus new theses received in our collections, and articles from recent journals.

(Book descriptions from Amazon)

Wellington City Libraries in association with Allen & Unwin, Unity Books and the New Zealand Book Council present “An Evening with Emily Perkins”, bestselling author of A Novel About My Wife.  Emily Perkins will be in conversation with Fergus Barrowman, with questions invited from the audience following the discussion.

When: Thursday 24 July, 6pm
Where: The Cinema, City Gallery, Civic Square, Wellington

Tickets are $10, and available at the Information Desk, Wellington Central Library, 65 Victoria Street.
Ticket sales are in person only, no reserves. Payments accepted: cash, cheque or eftpos.

Our last author event sold out quickly so don’t delay!

Now you can view and listen to stories from New Zealand and around the world on your computer in the comfort of your own home! Snake and Lizard, by Joy Cowley and illustrated by Gavin Bishop – a finalist in the Junior Fiction category of the 2008 NZ Post Book Awards – is the latest addition to our Kids’ Downloads page. Head over to our Kids’ Downloads page to listen to selected chapters from Snake and Lizard, read by Thomas La Hood.

As part of the Ngaio Community Arts Festival (2-11 May), Cummings Park Library is proud to host Meet the Ngaio Writers.

Six local writers will read extracts from their books and answer questions.

This event is at the library on Monday 5th May, 6.30 – 8pm.

For more information about what’s on at Cummings Park Library, have a look at our Cummings Park What’s on page.