EVENTS:
NZSA Northland Branch meeting
Tuesday 3 February, 2026, via Zoom
Secretary, Trish Fenton, will send the Zoom link with the agenda.
Save the day: NZSA Northland AGM
Sunday 22 March, 2026. 10.30 am at the McKay Stadium.
Details to follow.
POETS@ONEONESIX
116a Bank Street Whangārei
Wednesday 11 February, 5.30 – 7.30pm
Share your poetry and enjoy the company of fellow poets.
NORTHWRITE 2026 – Pathways to Indie Publishing Day
GRANT APPLICATION APPROVED!
A massive thank you to the Whangārei District Council Creative Communities Scheme for sponsoring our NZSA Northland NorthWrite Indie Publishing Day on 9 May 2026.
SATURDAY 9 MAY, 2026
REGISTRATIONS OPEN 9 March, 2026
VENUE: NORTHTEC, WHANGĀREI
Our committee worked hard to put in our very best application, and we were successful!
We have locked in our special guest speakers, all very experienced at indie publishing and marketing.
We will be running workshop sessions on the indie publishing processes, with particular reference to e-books and audiobooks (as well as print, of course), marketing, publishing on Amazon and other platforms, cover and page design (especially for children’s books) and various other aspects.
Thanks to receiving this valued grant, we will be able to keep the registration fee to $60 for the whole day. We also plan to involve local writers who have experiences and knowledge about publishing their own books to share with you. During the day we will be gathering up as much knowledge as we can about indie publishing in order to create a resource that we can then provide to Northland writers.
Stay tuned for further announcements. We’ll send out a draft programme in the next newsletter. If you are not already following us on Facebook, we’d recommend you do so to get the latest news and updates. We’ll also post on our website. https://northlandauthors.co.nz/
KAWAKAWA LAUNCH OF There Are Rabbits Here
Sherryl and Sue attended the Northland launch of the NZ Poetry Society’s anthology on Saturday 31 January, held in Kawakawa. It was wonderful to see such a great turn-out of keen poets and readers. Chair of the NZPS, Robert Sullivan, compered the afternoon, sharing poems from the anthology as well as his own work, and the open readings afterwards gave more than a dozen poets the chance to read one or two of their poems. It was an inspiring afternoon! Copies of the anthology are still available but they will be all gone soon. Visit the NZPS website to purchase. https://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/anthology/
REVIEW:
Voices from the Barn
Voices from the Barn has its roots in the Far North, and it shows these off proudly. For the past two years, writers and artists have been meeting in The Barn at Taipa to workshop stories, encourage each other, and improve their skills. The result is this lovely book that aims to “dress the Barn” – a pot pourri of pieces from 33 writers that encompass fiction, nonfiction, poetry, waiata and prose. As one wrote: “I will invite you to my dream”.
That invitation brings with it the northern scenery and scents where flame trees hang “splendidly in red” and “a thousand shearwaters clip the ripples”. One writer welcomes “the moonlight’s blessing on my pillow” while another describes the morning: “The predawn breeze caresses the leaves / then pulls the sun up into view / …till the bite of night / slowly takes flight.” Evocative descriptions abound – nasturtium leaves “like a phalanx of makeshift shields”, and a local river with its “boulder-rumpled kaleidoscope of variations” – and even when the tales move offshore there’s still an echo of the north through the writing. The sun might be shrouded by Chinese or LA smog, or by the dust created from a bomb blast, but it’s still there, and in Aotearoa’s Far North those “patched blues of summer water shimmer”.
The writers’ skills vary – no surprise there – but all have something important to say in a book featuring “cultures that weave” and where “we are all walking each other home”. Any tourist would be glad to take it home as a souvenir of their holiday, and a Far North exile missing “the sound of the sea singing” would love to find Voices from the Barn in their Christmas stocking.
Lesley Marshall
Member Storylines, NZSA, NZAMA, IPEd; Online tutor Applied Writing NorthTec; NZ coordinator International PEN
Books can be ordered via lisaspicer67@gmail.com $20.00 plus post and packaging
INVITATION:
From Lynn Jenner
I will be launching The Gum Trees of Kerikeri, the winning collection in the 2024 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award, in Kerikeri on March 29. All are welcome. Please contact me at lynn.jenner2@gmail.com for an invitation and venue details.
OPPORTUNITY:
Call for entries: Rod Oram Memorial Essay Prize 2026
Two years on from Rod’s death, New Zealanders under 25 years old, across all disciplines, are invited to answer the question:
What must we do – and do now – to ensure that future generations live well in Aotearoa New Zealand?
SHARING NZSA NORTHLAND BRANCH NEWS AND EVENTS:
Share with us on our Facebook Pages for NZSA Northland
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1618171775233622 (Private members’ group)
https://www.facebook.com/NZSANorthlandBranch (Public)
Submit your news, including events, awards, recent publications and book launches to: northlandauthors[at]gmail.com for inclusion in our monthly newsletter.
Free for financial members. 50 cents per word for non-members.
Check for further updates on: https://northlandauthors.co.nz/
Northland Branch 