Latest news with #Aotearoa-born
Scoop
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust Announces Residencies For 2025–26
Twelve writers have been awarded residencies for late 2025 and early 2026 at the historic cottage in Ōtepoti Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature. The Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust is delighted to announce that residencies for 2025–26 have been awarded to Ella Borrie, Gina Butson, Casey Carsel, Chye-Ling Huang (with Geoff Bonning), Joshua Iosefo, Anna Jackson, Helen Varley Jamieson, Jack McGee, Hazel Phillips, Nick Tipa and Janine Williams. Ella Borrie is a landscape poet who grew up in Cromwell, Central Otago, and is currently living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. During her residency she will be working on a collection of poetry, exploring issues of grief, old age, parenthood and the briefness of seasons. North Shore-based writer Gina Butson will work on her second novel, an environmental thriller set in Antarctica. Her first book, The Stars are a Million Glittering Worlds, will be published by Allen & Unwin in July 2025. Casey Carsel is an Aotearoa-born Jewish artist and writer. They will progress and revise their short story collection Her Big Responsibilities, an experimental series of texts loosely woven around a girl whose elderly grandfather has left New Zealand to return to his childhood home in Ukraine. Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland writer and director Chye-Ling Huang makes theatre, film and podcasts, and co-founded Proudly Asian Theatre Company in 2013. With scientist and storyteller Geoff Bonning, she will be working on New Antarctica, a political climate play set in Dunedin and involving countries connected by the Southern Ocean. The Auckland Pride Praise the Lord playwright in residence for 2025 is Joshua Iosefo (Mush). The year-long residency, supported by Auckland Pride, Auckland Theatre Company and SameSame But Different, consists of a series of development and writing opportunities for a queer playwright. Joshua will be developing their musical, NUMB, across the year, and will spend two weeks at the Cottage this spring revising and redrafting the work. Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington-based poet and academic Anna Jackson will work on a new collection with the provisional title Tell Me About It, a series of poetry sequences looking at questions of identity, translation, time, gender and the relation between all these things. Munich-based, Dunedin-born digital media artist, writer and theatre maker Helen Varley Jamieson will work on her book Devising with Distance, drawing on her experience in creating cyberformance (live online performance) to provide ideas, inspiration and professional development for those interested in remote artistic collaboration. Jack McGee is a playwright and producer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. He will be working on a full-length play about a middle-aged woman who gets off a cruise ship and stays in Ōtepoti Dunedin, inserting herself into the life of her estranged childhood best friend. Ruapehu-based author Hazel Phillips will work on Great Hearts, a narrative history of early women climbers and adventurers of Aoraki Mount Cook, bringing together the stories of groundbreaking mountaineering women in a compelling and creative way. The NZYWF 2025 Young Writer in Residence is Ōtepoti-based writer and performer Nick Tipa (Kāi Tahu). Nick's debut solo play Babyface was awarded the UNESCO City of Literature Beyond Words award at the 2025 Dunedin Fringe Festival. He will take up a two-week residency for this year's New Zealand Young Writers Festival. Whangarei-based author Janine Williams was the inaugural recipient of the Lynley Dodd Children's Writers Award in 2024. She will be working on Danger at Kohatu House, the third book in her series of middle-grade fantasy novels The Secret Staircase. Tāmaki Makaurau playwright Nuanzhi Zheng will be developing a multimedia theatre piece, Best Head Girl. A satirical dramedy investigating self-surveillance and voyeurism, it centres around a group of former Head Girls who stumble upon a secret society of Auckland's former Head Girls. Applications will open in August for the University Book Shop (Otago) 2026 Summer Writer in Residence. This six-week residency for an emerging writer runs from early January to mid-February. As well as a stipend, the University Book Shop provides administrative support – and staff discount on books too! Playwright Robert Lord (1945–1992) bought his cottage in Titan St, Dunedin, after taking up the 1987 Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. Located near the university and the town centre, the worker's cottage has three furnished rooms and a courtyard garden. It has been run as a rent-free residency for writers since 2003.
The Spinoff
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
‘We will not go quietly': The Māori Harvard student fighting for his future
Aotearoa-born Harvard student Samuel Taylor argues a US government crackdown threatens not just his visa, but the very ideals of academic freedom, global collaboration and free speech. The American government's decision last week to ban Harvard University from certifying visas for international students is a direct assault on academic freedom and integrity. It undermines the United States' standing as the centre of global academic collaboration and innovation, and holds the futures of some of the brightest, most passionate young people in the world hostage. This isn't just political – it's personal. I know, because I'm one of the international students whose future now hangs in the balance. When I was 11 or 12, on the opposite side of the world in Aotearoa New Zealand, I decided that I was going to go to Harvard. I'd heard that it was the best school in the world and I wanted to prove that I deserved to be there. From then on, I worked to turn my dream into a real goal – and I achieved it in 2019 when I was admitted to Harvard College to study political science and economics. Now, everything I worked for – everything thousands of international students have worked for – is at risk, through no fault of our own. Earning a place at Harvard is the dream for many young people around the world. It takes dedication and sacrifice, offering an opportunity to change lives in return. Harvard is unique among American universities for charging international students the same tuition as domestic students and offering them equally generous financial aid. In exchange for giving international students this extraordinary opportunity, Harvard gets a student body enriched by our unique perspectives and insights that no American-only university could replicate. All throughout Harvard, international students play a vital part in scientific and sociological discoveries that change the world. The government's decision means, effective immediately, one of the most important research institutions in the world will be critically damaged. To justify its actions, the Trump administration has accused Harvard of 'fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus' and 'employ[ing] racist diversity, equity, and inclusion policies'. On the basis of these accusations, the government has made sweeping demands – including access to private records and changes to university policies – that would effectively end free speech on campus. Complying would not only undermine Harvard's academic integrity and violate international students' constitutional and legal rights but also, given the government's treatment of immigrants and international students recently, put us in real danger. My peers aren't violent antisemites or Chinese Communist Party spies, nor has Harvard made them so. They're passionate, dedicated, gifted young people with the potential and the desire to change the world – and they're being punished for it. This conflict is bigger than Harvard, though. This administration is not only attacking our university, but every university in America. If the country's oldest and wealthiest school can be bullied into submission – for daring to defy the president, and on the thinnest of pretexts – then no institution in America will be safe from arbitrary, authoritarian crackdowns on free speech. As long as this decision stands, no international student will ever feel secure in their place in the United States. The door will slam shut on bright, talented people who came from across the world in search of a better future – and who would have given back in return. The spirit of discovery that has defined the last century of American life will find a new home. Harvard has challenged this decision in court, and while I'm hopeful that the courts will find in its favour, I'm not confident that we'll be safe. I'm angry, and I'm upset, and I'm scared for my future and for the futures of my friends, peers and classmates whose lives have been thrown into uncertainty. But this is about more than Harvard's international students. It's about the lives of every international student and scholar who comes to the United States in pursuit of a better life – and a better world. If this attack succeeds, it won't just end our dreams – it will trample on the very values that make Harvard, institutions like it and the United States great: free speech, academic integrity, global collaboration and the pursuit of knowledge. This is not just a fight for international students – it's a fight for the principles that underpin education in America. We will not go quietly.
