News from AUP

It's been a great month for Alice Miller. She has just won a 2014 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship, been part of a capacity-crowd session at the NZ Festival Writers Week and had her first book, The Limits, beautifully launched by Ingrid Horrocks. Bill Manhire says, 'Alice Miller is a musician and was once a historian, and these poems are full of the lyrical texture of time: ancient stories playing their notes against contemporary facts and feeling. At the same time, her book takes us far beyond its title, letting us glimpse again and again – in finite space – what is limitless.’ Here's Alice talking about her curious, restless, bold and lyrical poems with Lynn Freeman on Standing Room Only. Live Thursday 20 March, 6.30pm, Auckland. Poets Paula Green, Emma Neale and Siobhan Harvey read at the Pah Homestead. Drawing Room, Pah Homestead, 72 Hillsborough Rd. Wednesday 26 March, 5.30pm, Auckland. Poet John Adams and Martin Edmond join the first LOUNGE mega-reading for the year. Old Government House, University of Auckland, Cnr Waterloo Quadrant and Princes St. Exhibitions A Micronaut in the Wide World (Graham Percy) exhibition in Whangarei. 17 February 2014–20 April 2014, Whangarei Art Museum, The Hub, Dent Street, Town Basin. A Micronaut in the Wide World (Graham Percy) exhibition in New Plymouth. 26 April 2014–15 June 2014, Puke Ariki, New Plymouth. More

Awards It was especially nice to see Anne Kennedy's ‘exceptional way with words’ rewarded with the surprise announcement, at the NZ Festival Writers Week, of the Nigel Cox Unity Books Award. Fergus Barrowman leapt up and did a creditable imitation of Susanna Andrews, presented Anne with a stonking Unity Books voucher, and we all applauded. In another surprize award at Writers Week, Frances Edmond announced Michael Harlow (L) as the winner of the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for Distinguished Contribution to Poetry in New Zealand and previous holder Riemke Ensing (R) passed on the torch with flair.