News

We’re delighted to announce the stories that have made it to the short list of the Adult category of the inaugural Queenstown Writers Festival Short Story Competition. Dr Maxine Alterio has been given the task of whittling down the entries and ultimately choosing the winner. Maxine was one of our featured writers in 2019 – […]

Some of New Zealand’s best writers are giving their support to this year’s Queenstown Writers Festival. Literary superstars Dame Fiona Kidman and Witi Ihimaera will be joined by cartoonist/writer Tom Scott and Ockham New Zealand Book Award winner Becky Manawatu for the four-day event, which will be held in Queenstown from 5 to 8 November, […]

First written for the ArtyFacts newsletter. To find out more email: artyfacts16@gmail.com Novelist, short story writer and academic mentor Maxine Alterio believes that a writer should always “write the story that demands to be written”. The judge of the 2020 Queenstown Short Story Competition says ideas for stories can come from anywhere – it just takes […]

Just days after his award-winning play thrilled a Wakatipu audience, Tom Scott’s confirmed he’ll be here in person later this year. The cartoonist-turned-playwright’s famous for his satirical side-swipes — in 1982 he was even banned from former New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s press conferences because of his cartoons. His show, Daylight Atheist, was performed at Arrowtown’s […]

We’ve launched a new short story competition for writers in our region. The competition is open to everyone in the Otago and Southland areas and there are three categories; adults, students in Years 9 – 13 (aged 13 to 18) and primary school students up to Year 8 (aged up to 13). We’ve drafted best-selling novelist, […]

Bibliophiles, rejoice. The written word, in all its many forms, will be at the heart of a new festival making its debut in Queenstown in November. The Queenstown Writers Festival is the brainchild of a group of resort book-lovers, led by local lawyer Tanya Surrey. The idea first came about around 18 months ago, she […]