Thursday, October 22, 2015

MA in Creative Writing: application deadline approaches



If you are reading this, you are probably already in touch with what's been happening in the IIML community in recent years, but please pass this along to aspiring writers you think might be interested in taking their work to the next level.
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Where can the IIML MA take you? From Wellington to the world.
Since its inception, work from graduates of the IIML has travelled widely. Here are just some examples from the last 5 years.
Two Girls in a Boat, the title story from Emma Martin’s debut collection, won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Sam Kelly’s short film Lambs was invited to screen in competition at the Berlinale, Clermont-Ferrand, Melbourne, and Uppsala international film festivals.
Feature film The Orator, written and directed by Tusi Tamasese, premiered in competition in the 2011 Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti (New Horizons) section - it won two awards and a special mention from the jury.
Anna Smaill’s novel The Chimes was published internationally to rave reviews and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
Paula Morris’s YA novel series continues to be published successfully in the US, with the latest titles Unbroken and The Eternal City.
Hinemoana Baker and Craig Cliff have been writers in residence at the University of Iowa. Hinemoana has read in New York City, and was one of numerous writers with IIML connections representing New Zealand at the 2012 Frankfurt Bookfair.
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton has now been published in seventeen territories and twelve languages worldwide. The Luminaries took the world by storm and won the Man Booker Prize and Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Literature.
Carl Shuker’s novel Anti-Lebanon was published by Counterpoint in the US, earning praise from Publisher’s Weekly.
Desirée Gezentsvey won the Best Stageplay Award at the Moondance International Festival Competition. Nuclear Family premiered at the 2011 Adelaide Fringe Festival, and has had acclaimed seasons at the 2011 London Solo Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Top 100 Must-See Shows list).
In 2015-2016 Alice Miller is a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany.
And most recently, David Coventry’s debut novel The Invisible Mile has sold to Picador and will come out in the UK in 2016.
Closer to home, IIML graduates continue to publish award-winning poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and produce highly acclaimed stage plays and films all over the country. Our graduates are frequently invited to read from and discuss their work at literary festivals here and abroad. They are making and shaping how we experience Aotearoa New Zealand through our literature – telling local stories, reinventing history, creating new worlds. Their work explores language, culture, politics, what it is to be alive right now, and where the boundlessness of the imagination can take us. And it all starts from a small house in Wellington, in a room with ten other people, and a view.
If you would like to read more comments from our graduates, visit the IIML website.
And for application information click here.
Contact us by email: modernletters@vuw.ac.nz or phone (04) 463 6854.

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