Launched during NZYWF 2019, Ōtepoti Writers Lab is a place for all writers – any genre or level of experience – to come together to write, engage with other writers, and share their work.
Ōtepoti Writers Lab sessions are designed to enable participants to write what and how they wish. Prompts and provocations are provided to use as best serves, but nothing is compulsory - some like to attend simply to connect with other writers. Building community is at the heart of what we offer.
Ōtepoti Writers Lab is free to attend and professionally facilitated. Sessions take place approximately every two weeks, across a Thursday (7pm-9pm), Saturday (11am-1pm), Tuesday (11am-1pm) rotation. All sessions are currently online, and open to writers across Aotearoa.
Future Writers Lab dates and opportunities can be found below or on our Calendar
We also offer a number of commissions across the year, pop-up workshops, and an annual residency - to stay in the loop and be the first to hear about all opportunities, join our dedicated ŌWL mailing list.
Contact: h-j@prospectpark.co.nz
Upcoming Events
Rushi Vyas
(Ōtepoti Writers Lab Facilitator)
Rushi Vyas is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection When I Reach For Your Pulse (Four Way Books, 2023) and the collaborative chapbook Between Us, Not Half a Saint with Rajiv Mohabir (Gasher, 2021). Born and raised in the US, Rushi now lives in Ōtepoti (Dunedin) in Aotearoa New Zealand where he is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Otago studying the use of creative ritual in poetic practice. Rushi has poems forthcoming or published in The Georgia Review, Indiana Review, Pigeon Pages, Adroit Journal, Tin House, The Offing, Landfall (NZ), the anthology A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand (AUP, 2021), and elsewhere.
Eliana Gray
(Ōtepoti Writers Lab Facilitator)
Eliana Gray is a poet, youth worker and arts facilitator. They like queer subtext, collaborative writing and making sure people have a nice time. They have had words in: SPORT, Landfall, Poetry NZ, Mayhem, and others. Their debut collection, Eager to Break, was published by Girls On Key Press in 2019, and in 2020 they undertook residencies in both Finland and Ōtepoti. They can't wait to write with you.
photo credit: Jessica Thompson-Carr
Liz Breslin
(Ōtepoti Writers Lab Facilitator)
Liz Breslin writes poems, stories, dramas and things in the margins. Editing and performing and collaborating are Liz’s happy places. Their poem collections are In bed with the feminists (Dead Bird Books, 2021), part of which won the Kathleen Grattan Prize for a sequence of poems 2020, and Alzheimer’s and a spoon (OUP 2017, 2021), one of the NZ Listener’s Top 100 books of 2017. Liz has had residencies in Krakow UNESCO City of Literature, Poland (2019) and (virtually) at the National Centre for Writing, Norwich, UK, (2021) and worked with Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature in 2020 on The Possibilities Project. www.lizbreslin.com
photo credit: Rachel O’Neill
Emily Duncan
Emily Duncan is a multi-award-winning writer, dramaturg, and director. She held the 2019 University of Otago Robert Burns Fellowship and received the Bruce Mason Award in 2020. Emily’s other awards include Playmarket’s Plays for the Young (2013, 2014), The Robert Lord Outstanding Script Award (2018, 2019), and she has twice been shortlisted for the Adam New NZ Play Award. Her writing has been published in the anthologies Here/Now (2015) and 101 New Zealand Monologues for Youth (2019).
Emily holds a PhD in Theatre, trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City, leads writing seminars, and presents keynote, research, and conference speeches.