WRITERS ON MONDAYS

A Home in this World In his new memoir The Grass Catcher: a digression about home, Ian Wedde writes, 'We are all at home in places constructed as narratives, and in selves who act like characters in those narratives.' From early childhood in post-war Blenheim to the remote regions of Bangladesh, from an English boarding school to 1960s Auckland, from Jordan during the civil war of 1969-70 to family homes full of children, this memoir traces the many shifts in Ian Wedde's life. Helena Wiśhniewska Brow's Adam-Prize-winning Give Us This Day: a Memoir of Family and Exile, is the story of her father, Stefan Wiśhniewska, one of the 732 exiled Polish children offered unlikely refuge in New Zealand in 1944. From her childhood in small town New Zealand to modern-day Russia, Poland and Iran, the book follows the writer's search for meaning in the family lives shaped by exile: her father's, her mother's and her own. Join these memoirists for a conversation about home, exile, and character in creative nonfiction, chaired by Harry Ricketts. We regret that the author of How Does It Hurt?, Stephanie Potocka de Montalk, is unable to join us on Monday, due to a resurgence of the pain that is the subject of her memoir. Writers on Mondays is presented with Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation, and National Poetry Day. These events are open to the public and free of charge. DATE:    Monday 29 September TIME:     12.15-1.15pm VENUE: Te Papa Marae, Level 4, Te Papa (please note that no food may be taken onto the Te Papa Marae). Helena Wiśhniewska Brow's book launch has a date change: it is now to take place on MONDAY 13 OCTOBER at Unity Books from 6-7.30pm.