Review: The Griegol

We need more shows like this. The kind that effortlessly transports you to the same childlike sense of wonder, akin to the first time you are read what will become your favourite story. And it is no coincidence that The Griegol, written by Hannah Smith and Ralph McCubbin Howell, revolves around the power of storytelling. […]

Sex Workers of Aotearoa; A Day in the Life of exhibition

Back for the fourth year in a row – Sex Workers of Aotearoa; A Day in the Life of – is an annual art exhibition in which all art has been created by current or past sex workers. The artwork is for sale, showcasing various mediums; photography, ink, paint, mixed media, cross-stitch, sculpture, poetry and more.   […]

The Weight of a Thousand Oceans – review & giveaway

Wellington writers increasingly (and entirely justifiably) are viewing the ongoing climate disaster as a rich source of material for creating intriguing, imaginative speculative fiction. Based in future worlds where humanity has failed to stop a catastrophic, civilization-altering change in the climate system, these stories of what might be, if we don’t sort our shit out, […]

Things are getting surreal at Te Papa

We might be stuck in New Zealand for a while, but that doesn’t mean the world can’t come to us (especially if they’re rich, apparently). That’s the cool thing about the new exhibition Surrealist Art: Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen He Toi Pohewa: He Toi Marupō o Muhiama o Boijmans Van Beuningen. You’ll get a […]

Kia Mau festival!

The Kia Mau Festival started last week and is already racing along. It’s a treat to see Māori and Pasifika excellence in live performance – here’s what’s on this week. All I See at Circa Theatre The explosion of grief causes memories to ricochet around her. Memories begin to bleed into her reality. Time collapses. […]

Review: The Human Voice (La Voix Humaine; NZO season)

TW:  Suicide, overdose, trauma I reviewed a production of La Voix Humaine in February.  It’s been a strange wormhole of a year and it feels like a million years ago but also maybe yesterday that I was sitting in Suite Gallery, experiencing this piece for the first time.  Writing this review with the last one […]

Review: Eight Songs for a Mad King

King George III, despite having been a learned and enthusiastic sponsor of scientific and industrial progress, a faithful husband and father, and in many ways very liberal for his time (except pro-slavery, just saying), is basically famous for having gone mad. That madness has been scrutinized, diagnosed, and mocked roundly in modern literature, film, TV, […]

Books giveaway: Dreamweavers #1 and #2

Te Rā Aroha Press are about to launch Isa Pearl Ritchie’s Into the Labyrinth, the second of her Wellington-based YA Dreamweavers fantasy series (following on from Awa and the Dreamweavers, released last year). The series features Awa… …an intermediate student navigating changes to her family as a child of divorce, moving to a new school, […]

poster for the exhibition with a lot of text on it

Sex Workers of Aotearoa: A Day in the Life of

Sex workers and artists have gone hand in hand for hundreds if not thousands of years.  Think of basically nearly every nude woman in a classic painting by a white dude, or Moulin Rouge, or ‘Victoria’ or countless other examples and you get the idea. Oh sure, they’re muses. But what if we didn’t centre […]

James and Bullseye Bella

While the Wellingtonista is what we do on the side of our day jobs, it turns out that almost all Wellingtonistas have a side hustle on the side of the side. Case in point: our fearless leader only went and wrote a bloody book didn’t he? So I had a chat to him.   Hey […]