Mentoring

I'm honoured to be included as a comic book and graphic novels mentor, in the New Zealand Society of Authors' Mentoring Programme, alongside Dr Tim Bollinger, Robyn Kenealy, Ant Sang, Sarah Laing, Michel Mulipola, Matt Emery, and more. Full list here.

Admire

I'm very proud to have two poems in JAAM 32; Shorelines, "Outliers" and "The Piano", alongside excellent work from Emma Neale, Tim Jones, David Eggleton, Rata Gordon, Rachel Bush, and many other writers I admire. My gratitude to Sue Wootton for selecting my pieces and for giving "Outliers" a nod in her wonderful introduction.

Deep thanks

I'm thrilled to have received a Pushcart Prize nomination from Blue Fifth Review, for my forthcoming fiction "Deep Sea". My sincere thanks to Founding Editor Sam Rasnake and Editor Michelle Elvy.

Great full year

 

My thanks to Pikitia Press, who kindly asked me to review my great year in and out of comics. I'm very grateful they went to the trouble of sourcing complimentary pages from my comics to illustrate the post.

Islanded one

 

Day one of the Graphic Novelist Exchange Residency began with Ant Sang, Tim Gibson and me being introduced to Chuang Yung-shin, 61Chi and Ahn Zhe by Catriona Ferguson, Director of the NZ Book Council, with the help of translation from Dala Publishing's Aho Huang, at Vaughan Park Retreat Centre (you can read my introduction to the residency here).

Left to right: Dala Publishing's Aho Huang (our translator), 61Chi, Ahn Zhe, me, Chuang Yung-shin, Tim Gibson and Ant Sang.

Once the welcoming was over, we had the first of what was to become a daily ritual: the meeting.

 

The meeting gave us all a chance to air our initial ideas and thoughts about what form our collaboration could yield. 

Since finding out I had been selected for the residency, I had put a lot of thought into form and took along some graphic novels and stories and sketches to illustrate my ideas.

 

 

Click on images for links. 

I chose The Octonauts and the Only Lonely Monster to show how pages could be printed in different directions, upside down, for eg, to engage readers to participate physically with book and how this technique could be employed to make a reader from one culture shift their perspective, literally, to see a work from another culture's point-of-view (start video at 5:05 for demonstration of how the book has to be turned to be read).

I talked about Mary and Bryan Talbot's graphic collaboration, Dotter of her Father's Eyes, which demonstrated beautifully not only the relationship of its subjects but also is endearingly revealing about its author's marriage. 

New Zealand cartoonist Grant Buist had told me about another collaboration that involved translation of sorts: The Red Re[a]d Diary, by Teddy Kristiansen with Steven T. Seagle, where one artist, unable to read the language of the original manuscript, had made up his own interpretation for what the story was by looking at the images and text and guessing. 

And I talked about the graphic conversation Dylan Horrocks had with Emily Perkins, that resulted in All Hail Ellie Destroyer of Worlds.

I wanted to visually represent the surface image we present to strangers and the inner that we only reveal once we become friends, and how this applies to our cultures. 

I demonstrated how cut-outs could be used to hide then reveal parts of a narrative.

 

This idea was popular as it fit well with the overall theme of the exchange: Island to Island. 

The meeting gave us lots to think about. We decided a walk was in order to let the thoughts settle in. 

Vaughan Park is siutated at the edge of Long Bay Regional Park and the weather was kind to us as we took in the beautiful views....

 

 

...recorded ourselves recording and...

 

...recorded graphic fiction in the sand....

 

...encountered a little history about an earlier cross cultural exchange...

 

...and found our own ways to bridge our cultures.

 

 

Islanded

 

Left to right: 61CHi, Ahn Zhe, me, Chaung Yung-shin, Tim Gibson, Ant Sang, Catriona Ferguson (Director of NZ Book Council), [taking the photograph, and translating] Dala Publishing's Aho Huang. 

October was such a successful month for me, I didn't get a chance to write much about the Graphic Novelist Exchange Residency I'm participating in as I had to scoot off to Scotland to attend the Dundee International Book Prize (though, if you click on the link, you can read brief reports from Ant, Tim and me about the first week of the residency, on Booknotes Unbound, as well as introductions to the work of 61Chi, Chuang Yung-shin and Ahn Zhe). But since I landed back in NZ, I've had time to think over the past month and realise how lucky I am. I have really landed on my feet.

Thanks to the New Zealand Book Council and the Publisher's Association of New Zealand in association with the Taipei Book Fair Foundation, I got selected to spend a week at Vaughan Park with Ant Sang, Tim Gibson, and Taiwanese graphic artists 61Chi, Ahn Zhe and Chuang Yung-shin (Sean), to work on a collaborative graphic fiction publication.

Art work from the book-in-progress will be exhibited at the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) in February 2015, when the second part of the residency will take place in Taiwan.

      

When I found out I had been selected for the residency, I started a visual journal. But I thought it might be interesting to blog the experience, island to island, starting with day one of the residency.

Lovetot in the way

Sheffield's iconic Castle Market is to be demolished to make way for a park. It shouldn't bother me, I live in New Zealand now, not South Yorkshire, England, and yet I feel a pang of nostalgia for the old familiar things. I bought my satchel there, on a shopping trip with my great aunt May.

I've always felt my satchel to be something of a lucky charm, despite the frequency with which the stitching has come undone, and last year I was proved right when a story it featured in won Short Fiction's Seventh Annual Competition, having been illustrated beautifully by Jo Davies.

 Jo Davies' illustration of my satchel for Short Fiction #7. 

Jo had not seen a picture of my satchel but drew her interpretation from the description in my story, "While Women Rage in Winter", and generously gave me the resulting art work, for which I'm more grateful than she could possibly know.

The Satchel of Castle Lovetot                     

What made you outlast all others, baby?

The tapestry and canvas were just fad.

But you I used and often pushed aside

because you had a broken buckle,

you snagged a hole in my cardigan,

and you had a habit,

when I ran, of flapping like a cancan,

losing things, yet still I clung to you.

Five pounds you cost in ’86.

The stall in Castle Market was hung

like a camel in a caravan

with dozens like you, but my heart

was set on you because I loved

the way your skin felt against my knuckles.

Old enough to appreciate you now,

I caress you. Daily, let you ride my hips.

There's a great history of Sheffield, including the lovely named origins of Castle Market, in Carl Lee's Home; A Personal Geography. 

Fun thing: part two

Having found our bearings, Fox and I ventured inland to explore the beautiful city that is Dundee.

 Who's the man leading the kids through the centre of town? Could it be the Bash Street Flasher?

It's only Desperate Dan marching past Caird Hall. Still, best to remain at the rear, just in case.

Then it was time for morning tea and lemon drizzle muffin at the Folk Cafe, thanks to Fox, followed by a snout through the second hand stores - oh, the delightful smell of fusty books! - before lunch, also courtesy of Fox, who also brought me shortbread and generally kept me well fed and in fine company until I went to hear Kevin Barry read.

Barry is a consummate performer and he read with great flair as I nervously sketched him because I was too shy to take a photograph and risk my camera making inappropriate noises. Imagine being the cause of Kevin Barry's embarrassment. Actually, you needn't imagine; let me describe it for you.

Here is Barry, dutifully and effectionately signing copies of his books - yes, plural, the man has multiples of proofs of his talents.

You wait in line only to realise you haven't your copy of his short story collection on you then dash to buy one and return, queueing long enough to appreciate the logo on the tablecloth. He seems affable, gregarious, though a tad more shy than when he was reading to a packed room. Strange, you think, there's only you left in the queue. Then what do you do? 

Do you ask him about depictions of patriarchy in his fictions and if he consciously and deliberately champions flawed women via the narrative voices of men who at first seem bent on scorning them? No. 

You rip a sketch from your day book and stuff it at his face, muttering something like:

"This is you."

And you don't win the Dundee International Book Prize, but you've got the biggest smile on your face at the gala dinner....

Perhaps I was smiling because Amy Mason was lovely, or because Stuart Kelly and Cargo Publishing said wonderful things about my novel and my reading, perhaps it was because one of my readings was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland, or perhaps I was smiling because I had the honour of Jenny Brown's company at the dinner table.

....which is probably a good point to shut your trap.

But just before I do shut up, I'd like to thank Literary Dundee and the NZ Book Council once more for making my trip to the Dundee Literary Festival possible. I'd also like to thank everyone I met at teh gala dinner for your hospitality and warmth, and for al the encouraging and lovely things you each said about my novel. Thank you.

Fun thing: part one

My sincere thanks to the New Zealand Book Council for awarding me an International Travel grant and funding my flights to and from the UK to attend the Dundee International Book Prize gala dinner and Dundee Literary Festival. Thanks, too, to Literary Dundee for funding my accommodation at the Apex City Quay Hotel & Spa. I am grateful for your generosity, my trip would not have been possible without your assistance. 

And what a trip!


The Courier headline on the morning of the Dundee International Book Prize gala dinner:

I promptly took my person to the Street of the alleged incident.

Perhaps the alleged flasher misread the To Let sign for ToiLet.

It was in this state of naivety and openness to learning that I experienced Dundee.

On one's first visit to Dundee, one must have a room with a view, and this was mine:

from the Apex City Quay Hotel and Spa. And look right, a lighthouse on a boat. It would be easier to see if its light were on. The sun hadn't quite got its act togeether by 9.30 am, jet lagged, obviously.

But by mid norning it was a glorious day in Dundee, and how better to see the city's sights than in the company of local writer and blogger Rachel Fox, affectionately known online by moi since 2009 as T'other Rachel.

 Fancy, travelling betwixt antipodes to discover the Discovery had done it first. 

The Discovery expedition to the Antarctic was led by Robert Falcon Scott, of course, whose name I filched for my nom de plume the year I was shortlisted for the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize.

The Discovery appeared to have brought back a few unregistered passengers:

I don't know how long the penguin's been staring at that compass, but I think someone ought to say it isn't working.

 

Are we nearly there yet?

Fore word

Before I ramble on about being the runner-up in the Dundee International Book Prize, please make do with a comic about such things and associated feelings.

Tim to go

Last week, I participated in the first part of the NZ Book Council's Graphic Novelist Exchange Residency in conjunction with the NZ Publishers Association and the Taipei Book fair, at which New Zealand is guest of honour in 2015.

I'll be posting from my journal about the experience, so won't go into too much detail just now as I'm about to head off to Dundee for the International Book Prize gala dinner and prize giving, but I'll leave you with a taster of the residency from Tim Gibson, who, along with Ant Sang, made up the NZ contingent of the residency at Vaughan Park and was invited to talk about it on National Radio.

Awe some

I've started to post mini-profiles of some of NZ's women comics creators, artists and cartoonists on the Three Words blog - Judy Darragh, Giselle Clarkson and Olga Krause so far - just tasters of their work to give a flavour of the anthology I'm working on - and I am having the best time finding out about these inspiring and frankly bloody awesome women!

Ire on he

Two men talking about three women, asking why the New Zealand comics scene is a "boys' club" for "competent boy comics"*, why only 13% of the comics creators featured in From Earth's End; the Best of New Zealand Comics are women, and why NZ's women cartoonists are angry; on NZ National Radio, Adrian Kinnaird in discussion with Bryan Crump about Three Words, the anthology of women's cartoons and comics I'm editing with Sarah Laing and Indira Neville.





*A term coined by Indira Neville.

Process tours

 

Writing Process Blog Tour with Elizabeth Welsh and Michelle Elvy

Michelle was asked last month by a much respected writing colleague and friend Andrew Stancek to join a literary blog tour about the writing process, and asked if I'd like to join with Elizabeth Welsh to make it a conversation. Of course I said I'd love to. Both Michelle and Elizabeth are terrificly talented writers as well as stellar editors:

 Elizabeth Welsh, whom I first met in her capacity as editor at the Tuesday Poem group and who has joined me and Michelle as editor at Flash Frontier this year – and who writes beautiful, sublime poetry; 

Michelle Elvy, whose very short fiction I first read at Flash Frontier, which she founded and edits with an eye so sharp she can spot a dangling modifier from the other side of the Pacific. She's also wirtes wonderful poems that have appeared in JAAM and elsewhere.

 

We decided to take the conversational tone similar to the way Andrew Stancek and Len Joy did, and also similar to Gay Degani and Susan Tepper before them. We entered into this dialogue from our various views in Thailand, London and Auckland. Fun in the blogosphere, even if it’s all about process.  

We begin with an easy question…  

What are you working on? 

Rae: Thanks so much for inviting me in to the conversation, Michelle: where to start with the answer.  

Me being me, I’m working on a lot at the moment. I write short and long and graphic fiction, as well as poetry, so I’m currently polishing a collection of short fiction in preparation for submitting to publishers – a third of the stories in the collection have either been published already in journals or won or been placed in competitions – and looking to place a few more in zines.  

Long fiction-wise, I’m one of two finalists for the Dundee International Book Prize, for my unpublished novel Some Things the English, and I’m proof-reading that for about the zillionth time in the toes and fingers crossed hope that I can get an agent and get it published soon

I’m very excited to have been chosen by the NZ Book Council to participate in the Graphic Novelists Exchange Residency with Taiwan, which I’ll be starting work on in October. It’s a wonderful collaborative opportunity and a chance to really learn a lot from my graphic fiction peers, both here in NZ and in Taiwan – I can’t wait. 

  

I’m also working on a graphic memoir – but this is probably enough to be going on with!

  

Elizabeth: I have been working on my first poetry collection for the past couple of years. It has been a slow-moving process, but one that I feel is accumulative and developmentally complex.  

I gather, learn, unlearn, move backwards, forwards. At some point – hopefully in the next year – this collection will emerge whole. I will know when it is ready. I also write short fiction, but this has languished of late.  

After my poetry collection, I think my curiosity will wend its way back to short fiction. I need time and some rigour to do that though. I currently have two essays on-the-go – one on Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen and afterlives; the other on Katherine Mansfield’s review writing as communication. I consider the essay form an entirely separate category. The challenge, in the essay, is inserting a modicum of creativity and aliveness. 

Michelle: Elizabeth, I will look forward to seeing that poetry collection when it emerges. Your flash, to me, is also like poetry (like the story you wrote for the Blue Five Notebook special issue earlier this year).  And Rae – I know you’ve had an incredible year, and we’re now in the final weeks before you hear about the results of the Dundee Prize. This is an exciting month for you, with some serious travel miles in the works.  

Me? This year I decided to tackle a couple longer projects that have been sitting quietly on the back-burner for several years.

  

One is a creative nonfiction collection of essays about travel and cultural clashes/observations, based on our itinerant lifestyle aboard our sailboat, Momo. A small section from that just came out in the August issue of Takahē, and other segments are submitted elsewhere; I’m working toward putting them all together as a whole.  

I also have a collection of short stories that emerged from my 2012 historical flash project – and those are slowly emerging into a coherent whole. And then there’s a novel in the works – something has developed rather organically, and lovingly, from the 2014: A Year in Stories project. For me, that series (writing a series of interconnected stories, one month after another for a year) ignited something powerful – and it’s also linked to the inspiration I feel when writing about place, belonging, history, culture and how our loose connections bring us home (wherever that may be).  

In all my work, the sea figures rather centrally, and New Zealand emerges as a landscape I can’t leave too far behind. I find it both advantageous and disadvantageous to work on NZ-oriented writing while away: I’m geographically farther away, but the research and writing draws me back, which makes me very happy indeed. I’ve been doing that with regard to the Chesapeake my whole life, so in some ways this makes sense. Place is very important in my writing, even when my latitude and longitude shifts so regularly. 

I think in a way, for the first time ever, my projects all feel related -- not something I thought about before sketching this down here.  

How are you/your work unique? Or, how does your work differ from the work of others in the same area/genre? (April Bradley added this observation to the question: Genre is such a confining word, isn’t it?) 

Elizabeth: To be entirely honest, I ascribe to the idea that we are all simply singular drops in a swelling, shifting ocean of creativity (apologies for the analogy; but the meaning is spot on).

  

Our creative acts are just modifications, extensions, essentially remixes of what has already come before us. There is a great New York Times Op-Doc on this called ‘Allergy to Originality’: http://vimeo.com/51325336. I find this plurality, this additionality incredibly enabling and exciting. Of course, individuals being individuals, my writing will be different (however small that difference is) from the very nature of it coming from me.  

But, I guess, I tend to focus less on how I am/my work is unique and more on how we all fit together across creative boundaries. How we burgeon, escalate, multiply. 

Rae: Thanks a lot, Michelle - nice to know you're rooting for me all the way out somewhere on the ocean in Momo. Elizabeth, I love your focussing on how we all fit together and our place in a creative lineage of sorts.

This is such a huge question in some ways, I’m not sure I can answer adequately, but I’ll give it a go – thanks for asking.  

I work across what are supposedly four or five distinct genres: poetry, short fiction, graphic poetry/fiction and novels, but for the sake of simplifying my answer here, let’s just call them all story. This, I guess, is how my work differs from others, in that I don’t make those genre distinctions, at least they aren’t what I’m thinking about when I set out to make a new piece of art; my work drifts between and across genre boundaries all the time. If I’m writing a piece of short fiction and it calls for images, I give it images; if I’m writing a novel and it begs for the structure of a poem, that’s what I give it.  

So, to refer to April’s observation for a sec, no, I don’t find genre conflicting at all. But this may be because I’m the sort of person who likes to put herself into a box to puzzle her way out of: a personality thing? I grew up in a very constrained working-class environment, had few choices, so I let my imagination run riot. I see no reason to wrap myself up in genre any time soon. Thanks so much for asking me to think about it, though. 

Michelle: I find this almost impossible to answer. I don’t look over my shoulder as I write and ask: how am I unique?  

I write in the voice that feels right at the time. For flash, I allow more experimentation and exploration – voice, mood, etc. It’s fun – and important – to stretch in those short bursts. For longer works, I have a steady voice that’s been in my head since grad school, dating back to when I wrote historical essays – except I think the voice has developed (ahem: matured?). I write how it feels right – and I don’t ask why it comes out, or whether it’s unique. I do ask myself whether the voice and language matches the message: precision is paramount.   

I like Elizabeth’s answer. Drops in a large ocean: yes. I recently witnessed an amazing example of bioluminescence in an anchorage in the Ang Thon Marine Park here in the Gulf of Thailand, with pulsing rays of energy going out in oblong-shaped, somewhat regular waves -- and it was the kind of thing that evoked an indescribable feeling of connectedness, as otherworldly as it was. Writing is like that: indescribable but something pulsing that you can’t move away from, when it’s glowing all around you. Whether we are each a unique pulse doesn’t matter. But one thing is true:  writing makes me feel like the world is glowing.   

Why do you write what you do?  

Elizabeth: Largely to give pleasure, joy. Even though these are sometimes considered unimportant.  

I wholeheartedly believe in a plurality of voices, and I hope mine is a creative voice that some people want to listen to (or, rather, read). Creation, for me, is about connection, so I strive to reach others through my poetry and short fiction. I try to embrace a clarity and simplicity and to urge others to stop, communicate, listen. Just to be human really.  

I am an avid proponent of the concept of wabi-sabi – the acceptance of transience, imperfection, growth. I hope this transmutes to my creative work. I try to remind myself regularly of Henry Miller’s thoughts on writing: ‘Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life’. 

Rae: This is another of those deceptively simple questions that’s actually Mariana Trench deep. Why do I write the subject matter that I write? Or why do I write in the genres I write? Or…OK, let’s just start with the first interpretation and see where we end up.  

I am drawn to writing about what are essentially class issues, events, opinions and issues that affect working-class and marginalised people and those who have historically had little voice or platform of their own. I write it because, as a working-class woman myself, I wasn’t listened to, wasn’t taken seriously, was patronised and, in certain company, still am.  

I write the stories I want to read, about people I recognise: I don’t feel an affinity for middle-class representations in fiction and yet these are predominantly the stories being published. A white working-class woman’s stories mightn’t be much of a leap, but it’s an important distinction to me and it’ll no doubt be important to someone else.  

Michelle: For me, writing is about connection. To readers, to other writers, to myself. My own stories (fiction or non) emerge in some kind of random yet natural way, and I do not believe in forcing them or feeling anguished about any of it.  

I suppose I write because I feel the desire to express connections between individuals, and to see where seemingly disassociated presences, events or energies may intersect. I wrote about this very question before: 

…that a person is an outcome derived from a sum of experiences, events, and stories, all arranged seemingly willy-nilly yet producing precisely and only one result. I think the same is true for the tales we tell.  And to tell those stories, to create one precise outcome while the other voices, characters, plotlines, perspectives, nuances, whatever remain lurking at the edges: that is a triumph. The possibility for numerous outcomes — the possibility of anything, really —  lives on the writer’s page. To write about that possibility, and to do it with the precision of black on white, word on page, is a thrill.

  

Is it obnoxious to quote oneself? Dunno. But I stand by what I wrote back then.  

How does your writing process work?  

Elizabeth: I am a morning worker and night reader kind of gal. Any thinking, constructing, editing or creative act I need to undertake pretty much has to occur before lunchtime. I am a slow worker. This wasn’t always the case.  

I used to work quite frantically, but over the past couple of years I have become even more particular about giving myself the space and time to mull, tease out, edit. An absolutely integral part of my process is reading. Not reading for research, but simply the act of reading for pleasure and then allowing myself to think. I was an English and Philosophy student when at university and this has directed – even now – how I approach creating.  

I read Confucius’ Analects each night before I go to sleep – it’s important to remember that there is more than self.  

I also regularly visit a fragment of tapestry in the V&A to simply look and think about it. I consider it part of my process. It is from Belgium, created by an unknown person in the late fifteenth century. Room 94, I think. There is one singular white unicorn in the centre with thousands of flowers and creatures surrounding it (this type was called millefleurs). The room is always kept dark, because it is filled with old tapestries. It feels hushed and reverential. The light from the white silk thread of the unicorn fascinates me. I try to visit it often and every time I see something more, something startlingly new.  

Rae: Elizabeth, I definitely agree about reading as being integral to the writing process. Alison Lock recently asked me a similar question, so I’m going to add to the answer I gave on her blog, if that’s OK with you. 

I work in several genres, short fiction, novels, graphic fiction, poetry, graphic poetry, and find I lean towards each at a different point in the day. For example, drawing comics requires less intense concentration than writing fiction, so I will often write fiction first thing in the morning and find I have enough creative energy to draw a comic in the evenings. Poetry finds me amenable in the evenings, also, often as I’m about to fall asleep, though it’s quite emotionally draining to write.  

I try not to waste any writing time, and writing in a combination of genres really makes efficient use of my creative energies. 

  

By the afternoon, I’m fidgety and impatient and that’s when the serious editing takes place – it’s amazing how those carefully crafted sentences are revealed as butt-naked Emperors at two pm! Out they go. I am often totally fatigued at the end of each day, and still the ideas pour in.    

Michelle: Oh you both have such real schedules compared to my chaos: I can picture Elizabeth editing in the morning, while Rae tears up morning drafts and wraps robes around her Emperor by the time it’s afternoon tea! I also really like how Elizabeth reminds us how reading is so important. My ten-year-old just wrote an ‘argument’ essay about why kids should be allowed to read at night, to ‘read themselves to sleep’ – as opposed to being given a definitive ‘lights out’. Reading and letting the mind settle: yes. You never know where it will lead you – but it will certainly lead you away from yourself.  

As for writing: things pour out in a rather chaotic way, in intense spurts of energy. I seem to be at my best when I have a few projects happening at once.

  

When something is really churning, I may get up in the middle of the night and stay at it for hours. I live in a very small space – a 43’ sailboat – with my husband and two kids, and besides my own writing, my editing work plus various family needs (including my daughters’ schooling) are always present. So finding that mental space is essential. I dream sometimes about having a room of my own – but then I realize that dream would not include life as I know it, and I love life as I know it. So the room stays in my head, and I write when (and where) I can.  

Sitting in the evening breeze is important to me, and seems to balance the day’s hot commotion. Longer passages are wonderful for inspired thinking time – which is essential for me. The act of writing is not about the writing per se – but about listening to the things around me and the voices in my head, and sensing those rhythms.  When I’m ready to write something down, I steal the time and type fast and furiously (my kids love the story of how I was once shushed in a German archive for tapping my keys too loudly!). I am a multi-tasker by nature, so finding ways to write while the world shouts chaos around me: that’s just normal.  But those long hours of apparently doing nothing? Those are part of my normal (and essential) rhythm of life, too. 

Elizabeth Welsh is a poet, flash writer and academic editor. In 2012, she won the Auckland University Press-Divine Muses emerging poetry prize with her poem ‘Water Buffalo’. She is currently working on her first poetry collection. Her poetry and flash fiction have been published in print and online journals, both in New Zealand and internationally. Weekly, she also enjoys contributing to the online community Tuesday Poem.

For the last five years Elizabeth has run The Typewriter – an online poetry magazine for emerging New Zealand, Australian and Asia-Pacific poets. As editor, she loves reading poetry from new, enthusiastic writers.

As well as editing academic books, she is an academic researcher, specialising in modernist New Zealand and Australian literature; recently, she spoke on Katherine Mansfield at the Sorbonne. She has two upcoming chapter publications on New Zealand short fiction writer Katherine Mansfield and Irish modernist Elizabeth Bowen.

Originally from the beautiful climes of New Zealand, she has been living and working in, as well as exploring the joys of, Europe for the last couple of years. She wakes up daily with a sense of adventure and loves where travelling is taking her.

Michelle Elvy lives and works as a writer, editor and manuscript assessor based in New Zealand and currently sailing in Southeast Asia. She edits at Blue Five Notebook and Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction. She is an associate editor for the forthcoming Flash Fiction International (W.W. Norton, 2015), and has guest edited at Smokelong Quarterly and lent her reading eye to a number of competitions. Her poetry, prose, nonfiction and reviews can be found in a variety of journals and anthologies. She has been interviewed about her somewhat unorthodox lifestyle in The New York Times, The Review Review and the Family Adventure podcast series. 

More at michelleelvy.com (editing), Glow Worm (poetry & prose) and Momo (sailing).