News reaches us of two opportunities for writers, both aspiring and established, to be featured in upcoming anthologies.

First up is the latest Pikihuia Awards for Maori Writers. Entries are open to writers of novels, short stories and film scripts.

You can download the entry form as a PDF here. Then send your story and completed entry form to Pikihuia, PO Box 17-335, Wellington, or email it to Pikihuia@huia.co.nz. Entries close on 15 May.

There are cash prizes of $2000 for the winners of these categories:

Best short story written in Maori
Best short story written in English
Best novel extract written in English
Best short film script written in English

Selected winners and finalists will also be published in Huia Short Stories 7 - the contemporary Maori fiction series published by Huia Publishers. Two highly commended finalists in each category will receive a cash prize of $500 each. There’s more info on the superb Huia website.

A call has also gone out to established and new writers to submit poems for a new anthology of Aotearoa New Zealand poetry:

The anthology will feature poems about events and situations in the world that challenge, anger or excite us, that we fear or long for. From privatisation to peace, from human rights to global warming, from trade to famine, there are important poems to be written.

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Heavens, nearly forgot: the final submission date for The Six Pack 2007 is March 7, so if you've been dithering or have managed to forget about it you still have a whole week to churn something out. Wonders have been done in less time, and with excellent results, so go for it!

This year NZ Book Month will take place from 2nd–30th September and once again The Six Pack will be published – an anthology of six new pieces of NZ writing which will be distributed, sold and promoted widely throughout New Zealand to celebrate the Month. You could win five grand, see your writing published, and gain instant notoriety, if you like that sort of thing.

Entry forms and criteria containing all the details are downloadable here.

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Most authors have to supplement their book income with other forms of writing, so here’s news of a conference that might be useful. The Bank of New Zealand Freelance 2007 conference will be held on Wednesday May 2 and Thursday May 3 in Auckland.

It’s the second national conference for New Zealand freelancers. Keynote speakers will be Kirsty Cameron (the editorial director of women's lifestyle titles at ACP Magazines, pictured), Kate Coughlan (editor and publisher of LeafSalon favourite Life and Leisure) and Julian Andrews, a director of Jones Publishing.

On the reporting bench will be David Cohen, a successful freelancer here and overseas; Karen Holdom, an Auckland-based freelance writer specialising in health; and Stacy Gregg, the fashion editor who sold the fashion website runwayreporter.co.nz to ACP.

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If you’re lucky, the impending holidays mean that you’ve got more time to write. So we’ve rounded up the top web resources for writers of all genres and persuasions.

If you’re stuck for a fact or lost for a word, you’re likely to find the answer on one of these nine sites. Some sites are not particularly well known, but all are extremely useful. And even if you don’t have a project on the go at the moment, they could provide the inspiration you need to kick-start a story.

So get ready to CTRL+D and add these to your Favorites. And if you know other sites that should be added to the list, drop us a line. We'll do an update in the future with readers' recommendations.

1. History By Decades
Need to add that extra layer of authenticity to your story? This remarkable website catalogues historical, social and cultural information by the decade, so you can find out who’s in, who’s out, who died, and who was wearing what – as far back as 1650. Riveting stuff from the excellent folks at Writer’s Dreamtools.

2. Visual Thesaurus
Lost for words? Here’s an online thesaurus and dictionary of over 145,000 words that you can explore using an interactive map. It's a tool for people who think visually. We bought the software version and it’s worth every cent.

3. Encyclopedia Mythica
The internet encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion. The mythology section is divided to six geographical regions: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Oceania. Each region has many clearly defined subdivisions that will ease your search, including Polynesia.

4. Snopes
The truth is here: urban legends, common fallacies, misinformation, old wives' tales, strange news stories, rumours, celebrity gossip, and similar items.

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Enjoy writing? Fancy broadening your literary horizons through overseas travel?

Then you could be helped on your journeys in 2007 as part of the New Zealand Book Council’s International Writers’ Programme.

The Programme gives Kiwi writers support (read 'dollars') to attend international literary festivals. And if you just happen to be planning a promotional visit connected with the international publication of your work, you're also eligible to apply for assistance.

The catch? Nothing too onerous:

Writers should be of proven literary excellence with a good publishing track record. Inquiries are welcome from writers in all fields of literary work (fiction, poetry, children’s literature, drama and literary non-fiction). Interested writers can email or write with a SAE to the New Zealand Book Council office for an application form and the conditions of the exchange opportunity. Applications will be judged by a panel convened by the New Zealand Book Council’s Chief Executive. The first deadline for 2007 applications is 15 December 2006.

If this has got you scrabbling through the drawers for your passport, drop an email to director@bookcouncil.org.nz and tell 'em we sent you.

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If you were thinking about submitting work for the 2006 edition of the IIML’s online journal Turbine, it's not too late.

The official submission deadline was today – but the generous folks in Wellington have decided that they will consider any work that arrives over Labour Weekend.

Last-minute poems, fiction and creative non-fiction may be emailed to turbine@vuw.ac.nz, including the phrase 'Turbine Submission' in the subject line. Head here for the full submission guidelines.

Have a great long weekend - and don't do anything we wouldn't do.

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Chris Price from the IIML has dropped us a line about the upcoming Iowa Workshops in Wellington during January and February 2007. The 'Starting and Building a Novel' workshop with Curtis Sittenfeld (pictured) looks especially interesting; the application deadline is 10 November.

Sittenfeld passed through the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2001, and her first novel, Prep, was a huge success in the USA last year. It was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2005 by the New York Times.

Time magazine called her 'the Faulkner of awkwardness' (!) and her new book, The Man of My Dreams, comes with a hearty endorsement from Alice Munro.

Says Chris Price:

Anyone who's thinking they might want to embark on their first novel might be interested to know they can take a course with her during January and February at the IIML. 'Starting and building a novel' is particularly suitable for people who have only written short fiction before.

According to Sittenfeld, the workshop will illustrate the leap from short fiction to full-length:

How is the novel's longer form similar to and different from the form of stories? We will pay particular attention to structure and plot development, and the way in which the novel affords greater complexity in both.

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Many of New Zealand's leading Maori writers will gather in Wellington on 6–8 October for the 2006 Maori Writers National Hui. This year's theme is Tukua – Just Let It Go! and the keynote speeches will be given by Witi Ihimaera, Bill Manhire and Hirini Moko Mead.

Cath Fitzgerald, Apirana Taylor and Rim D Paul will run workshops in fiction, film, performance, lyric writing and storytelling. Publishers’ forums are planned, with reps from several publishing houses offering advice and commentary.

There will be two evening functions:

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New semesters of literary courses are about to start so if you’re wondering what you’re going to do with yourself now winter is kicking in, dither no longer.

The Whitireia online Diploma in Publishing (previously mentioned here earlier this year in an article on NZ publishing) covers editing, marketing and trade knowledge, project management, typesetting and typography and has been very well received so far in the industry. The course starts on July 24 but you must apply by June 1. That’s not far away, people. Check the website for more details.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the publishing machine, the Waiairki Certificate in Creative Writing, similarly online and now in its second year, will be starting on June 5. The tutors of the programme, which covers short stories, poetry, family history or non fiction, have not been sitting about waiting for students to show up.

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A coupla calls for submissions here for those of you yearning to put pen to paper for a purpose.

First, Bravado, the lit-mag in The Bay (Tauranga) has had a few changes in staff and a big step forward – it’s now going to be coming out three times a year, in March, July and November. We’ve kind of missed the March deadline for you, but the next is May 31st for the July issue, then September 30th for November. There's also a new website.

The increased output means they need lots more incoming writing, so time to get busy. Send your fiction to Karalyn Joyce bravado.fiction@xtra.co.nz, your poetry to Tim Upperton bravado.poetry@xtra.co.nz, and your prose to Christine Cloughley bravado.prose@xtra.co.nz.

Second, there’s a new online journal for anything to do with Antarctica: Icetongue. It was founded by a group of participants in the US Antarctic programme. They say, and I quote:

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The Landfall Essay Competition has come round again. Otago University Press, publisher of Landfall and the sponsor of the competition, will be ready to start taking entries from May 1, and you’ll need to have come up with an original essay on any topic, no more than 6000 words long by the June 16 deadline.

It’s definitely the essay competition to be seen in – previous winners include Gregory O'Brien (1997), CK Stead and Peter Wells (1999), Patrick Evans and Kapka Kassabova (2002), and Tze Ming Mok and Martin Edmund (2004).

The competition ‘encourages writers to think aloud about New Zealand culture, and aims to sustain the tradition of vivid, contentious and creative essay writing that has appeared in Landfall’s pages.’ The prize is $2500 and a year's subscription. The winning essay will appear in Landfall 212, published in November 2006. (Landfall 211, incidentally, will be out in May sometime, with Tze Ming Mok having been guest editing). Fame and fortune are within your trembling grasp. Or not. Off you go.

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Thought we’d better not delay in getting this writers event up, as Kim Griggs, the organiser, has told us that tickets are selling fast (as they would be at $25 a pop, thanks to generous sponsporship). It’s a conference for freelance writers, which will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Auckland on Thursday April 6, entitled The Freelance Marketplace – Connecting Writers and Editors.

You'll hear magazine editors discussing what they want from freelancers and freelance writers talking about how they work. There will be workshops on tools and techniques of the trade, and in the final conference session, two freelancers will discuss rates and rights in the New Zealand marketplace with two senior magazine managers.

The conference, organised by a small group of freelancers, is possible thanks to the support of the JTO, APN Print, the Magazine Publishers' Association and the EPMU. You can download the programme and registrations forms here. Registrations close Monday March 27. For any queries about the conference, please contact Kim Griggs on kim@griggs.net.

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In keeping with the current positive blip in non-fiction, we have news of a new writing group which is being formed this month, primarily focusing on non-fiction, but including poetry and fiction too.

It'll be meeting every two weeks, starting tomorrow, Tuesday 6 December at 7pm-8.30pm at Clarke's cafe in the Wellington Public Library, and will resume in 2006 on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. The group will provide opportunities for writing, workshopping, and working together on group projects for publication and performance.

For more information, please contact Keith Lyons on 04–383 7728 or at writing@keithlyons.org.

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Not much news out there at the moment, so here’s an interesting snippet from all you strapped-for-Xmas poets and short story writers. An thoughtful chap by the name of Bruce Holland Rogers (right, with scarf-friend) who resides in Eugene, Orgeon – ‘the tie-dye capital of the world’ apparently – has come up with a workable idea for making a spot of dosh through emailing punters his ‘short-short’ stories on a subscription basis.

It’s a similar concept to the ‘Daughters of Freya’ idea that did a global ripple a few months ago. For a measly $5 per annum Bruce sends his subscribers three short-short stories a month. So far he has about 600 subscribers in 60 countries and his stories are being translated into eight languages. Bruce writes in all sorts of different styles. Sample stories and a description of the service are up at Bruce’s website – I particularly liked Don Ysidro.

You can also check out his long string of awards and the various other literary services he offers. Just one of these is putting himself up for auction to read his stories aloud. He’s also delighted to answer questions about the subscription service – why he started it, where he publishes stories after they've been distributed by e-mail, and the advantages and disadvantages of this new literary enterprise. Food for thought.

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The Book Council is calling for applications for its International Writers’ Programme, and offering support to local writers attending high-profile international literary festivals.

Last year, successful applicants included Catherine Chidgey (Guardian Hay Festival in Wales), Robert Sullivan (Harbourfront Festival in Toronto) and Greg O’Brien, Ian Wedde and Tusiata Avia (all to a book launch in Moscow).

According to the press release,

Writers should be of proven literary excellence with a good publishing track record. Inquiries are welcome from writers in all fields of literary work (fiction, poetry, children’s literature, drama and literary non-fiction). Writers on promotional visits connected with the international publication of their work are also eligible to apply for assistance.

The closing date for applications in the first funding round is 15 November 2005, but writers can continue to apply in 2006. Interested? Fancy getting enough free Airpoints for a quickie weekend in Sydney, or failing that, Hamilton? Fire off an email to director@bookcouncil.org.nz. (And take a tip from us: pick a festival or book launch in London or North America, and and haggle for Premium Economy class at least.)

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