Four Kāpiti Coast writers, Hinemoana Baker, Sylvie Haisman, Lynn Jenner and Tina Makereti, will be celebrating their recently published books at Valhalla Cafe in Raumati South, from 4pm on Saturday 14 August.
There will be readings, book sales and signings, and cake to share with the audience. Beverages and cafe food will be available from Valhalla’s friendly staff. Entry is free.
Hinemoana Baker’s much anticipated second collection of poetry, Kōiwi Kōiwi | Bone Bone, combines feather light descriptions of material reality with the mournful gravitas of historical and personal memories; balances incisive social commentary with a wry, quiet humour; and is anchored by Māoritanga while buoyed by international, crosscultural and humanist engagements.
Sylvie Haisman’s great-great-great-grandmother was the only woman to survive the 1875 wreck of the Strathmore, and seven months exile on a sub-Antarctic island. Over 150 years later, Haisman follows her ancestor’s epic adventure in her literary non-fiction book,
This Barren Rock: a true tale of shipwreck & survival. Drawing on journals, faded photographs and letters, she unearths a story of gallant sailors, orphaned children, cruel hunger and debilitating cold.
Lynn Jenner’s debut collection, Dear Sweet Harry, is an assemblage of ‘factions’ and ephemera, poems and scraps the autobiography of an obsession linking the author’s own family history with that of two famous deceivers, Harry Houdini and Mata Hari.
Jenner was the recipient of the 2008 Adam Prize for Creative Writing.
Tina Makereti’s short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, explores a world where mythological characters and stories become part of everyday life. Old and new worlds co-exist, cultures mingle and magic sometimes happens. The collection was described as ‘Thirteen quirky, cheeky, edgy stories from a new writer whose inventiveness and empathy mark her as one to watch’ by David Hill in the NZ Herald.