To mark the centenary of Colin McCahon’s birth, a weekend of events in August included a bus ride to experience ‘McCahon’s Auckland’ and an ‘open home’ at the McCahon House Museum. Paula Morris takes the trip. Buckle up. The first bus to Titirangi leaves at nine AM on Saturday and there’s a certain giggly excitement … Read more
The Spinoff Review of Books literary editor Steve Braunias reports from the weekend’s events at the New Zealand Festival in Wellington. Wellington! O city of the institutionalised Māori greeting and the office training day, its steep, high banks pinned with yellow gorse flowers, the sign in Eastbourne that reads in a sing-song rhythm LITTLE BLUE … Read more
Author Paula Morris, who hosts Nigella Lawson live onstage at the Aotea Centre tonight, shares her own cooking journey. When I moved to England in 1985, to study at the University of York, I couldn’t cook. Not a single thing. I hadn’t learned much at home because my mother disliked cooking and couldn’t stand anyone … Read more
Dr Paula Morris reveals the seething family dynamics and political turmoil that went on behind the scenes of the books loved by millions. Southern Missouri, 1928. On a green ridge outside the sleepy town of Mansfield, an elderly farming couple lived in a white wooden house, its soaring stone chimney built entirely from the rocks on … Read more
Paula Morris responds to the ‘glorious, painful, sharp and funny’ anthology of Māori writing, Black Marks on a White Page. Nobody likes a Māori writer. First of all, nobody knows who we are. Nobody knows the names of any writers, apart from the ones with movies [see: Frame, Ihimaera, Duff, Wendt]. This is really our … Read more
An essay by Paula Morris on teaching creative writing in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Auckland – Otahuhu. Over the past two years I’ve spent a lot of time in Otahuhu Intermediate School in South Auckland, teaching creative writing as part of a New Zealand Book Council programme. Most of the children there are … Read more
An essay by Paula Morris on the bad vibes and bitching which immediately greeted her launch last week of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. Last week a lot of people squashed into the Gus Fisher Gallery on Shortland Street in Auckland to hear about the launch of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. Many … Read more