GUEST WORKSHOP SERIES 2023 | CURATED BY ELIANA GRAY
in addition to our regular offerings in 2023, Ōtepoti Writers Lab is thrilled to announce a series of one-off sessions, led by guest facilitators. These specially curated sessions will provide a 'workshop-style' experience, covering everything from how to use dioramas to rejuvenate your creative process, to using writing as a part of your mental health and well-being toolbox.
It is with gratitude and excitement that we welcome Talia Marshall, Dominic Hoey, Dan Goodwin and Nicola Brown to the ŌWL community as the facilitators for these special sessions.
These workshops are free to attend, professionally facilitated, and open to writers across Aotearoa. Sessions will be held online and will include our usual participant cap. To read more about what our guests have planned, or to register, keep scrolling!
For more information about the programme, or for general enquiries, please contact h-j@prospectpark.co.nz
TALIA MARSHALL | DIORAMAS
Come and fix a piece of writing by making it 3D. Dioramas make the world small and the maker big. Bring some small objects and a piece of writing and see how shifting these around in real time and space can feed back into your writing. It will be more fun than school.
For this session, participants are asked to bring small objects, glue, scissors, a cardboard box/small-medium, and images that can be cut and glued and relate to their chosen piece of writing.
April 13th, 7pm-9pm
Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia/Rangitāne o Wairau/Ngāti Rārua/Ngāti Takihiku) is a Dunedin based writer who is currently working on a book of essays/autofiction/memoir. She has had work published in Landfall and Sport, Tell You What 2017 and in magazines like North & South, the now defunct Mana, Canvas and online at the City Gallery blog, The Spinoff, Newsroom and Pantograph Punch. In February 2018 her essay was quoted on the cover of the American Poetry Aotearoa issue.
DOMINIC HOEY | CRAFT WORK AND INDUSTRY Q&A
Join best selling novelist and poet Dominic Hoey to go over some craft exercises and ask questions on the ins and outs of writing and being a professional artist at the ass end of the world.
June 8th, 7pm-9pm
Dominic Hoey is a poet, author and playwright based in Auckland, New Zealand. His debut novel Iceland was a New Zealand bestseller, long-listed for the 2018 Ockham Book Award and his short story 1986 won the 2021 Sunday Star Times Short Story Award. His latest poetry collection I Thought We’d Be Famous was released in October 2019. His latest novel Poor People With Money was released by Penguin in August 2022 and spent 4 months in the NZ best seller list. Dominic has written and performed two one-person hit shows about his bone disease and his inability to get arts funding. In a former life, Dominic was an MC battle and slam-poetry champion.
Through his Learn To Write Good creative writing course, Dominic has taught hundreds of students around the world how to think dyslexic. He also works with young people through the Atawhai program, teaching art, yoga and meditation to help them with their mental health and self-esteem. Currently he lives with a small, vicious dog and dreams of one day owning an animal rescue farm.
NICOLA BROWN | WEAVING OURSELVES TOGETHER WITH WORDS
People have been scribbling things down to make sense of life for decades. Centuries. Possibly millenia? There are many reasons why writing can be therapeutic; in this session we'll cover a tiny bit of science about what some of these are (cheatsheet: neuroscience!). We'll consider various forms of writing-as-processing, and try out some techniques. There will also be a reference list, because Nicola has obsessively bought far too many books on this topic.
August 5th, 11am-1pm
Nicola Brown is a clinical psychologist, stand-up comedian, executive coach, writer and speaker. She is also an occasional justice warrior, particularly in relation to women's health issues. She lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin with her wife and son, an overly excitable schnauzer, and however many rodents the cat brought in on any given day. Nicola has been a food columnist for the Otago Daily Times, and is currently working on a memoir. Her website is www.nicolabrown.co but she constantly forgets to update it.
DANIEL GOODWIN | WHERE TO BEGIN? AND HOW TO GET TO THE JUICY BITS
Where to begin? Does every new creative project feel like starting from scratch? Do you finish one piece and find yourself saying, ‘What if I never write again?’ If a blank slate feels insurmountable, this session can offer some tools to leap over the creative slump of starting, and into the juicy middle bits.
November 9th, 7pm-9pm
Dan Goodwin (they/them) is a Scottish-Pākeha performance poet, actor and writer. In 2016, they completed their Masters of Text and Performance at RADA and Birkbeck. A proud JAFA slam poet, they are the 2021 Auckland and National Slam champion, and have performed internationally and across Aotearoa including the Auckland Pride Gala, London’s Bloomsbury Festival, the International Comedy Festival, The World Slam Championship, Verb Festival, and the arts festival ‘Welcome to Nowhere’.