The Nelson Arts Festival is over for another year, and I’m exhausted but happy. Nelson Mail entertainment reporter Naomi Arnold, arts reporter Anna Pearson and I spent most of our spare time over the last three weeks seeing and reviewing more than thirty shows for our blog, On the Festival Trail.
I managed to score tickets to twelve events. My write-ups varied in tone and formality depending on how much time I had to write them- sometimes I had upwards of four shows in a weekend to process for the next round of blog updates- but I was mostly pleased with how they came out.
Something I really appreciated about the blog was getting the chance to speak to the organisers and/or performers afterwards and have a proper, in-depth debrief with them about their production. This was especially satisfying when our social networks cross-hatched, such as with Carnival Hound and the Richard Meros show, but I got a lot out of my conversations with Peter Graham and Leigh Marsden as well.
- Peter Graham’s So Brilliantly Clever
- Couch Stories
- Leigh Marsden’s Scarlet
- Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man
- The Nelson Arts Festival Masked Parade (pictured below)
- Tahuna Breaks
- The Thinking Brunch Two
- Lynda Hallinan’s Back to the Land: A Year of Country Gardening
- Carnival Hound
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Jenny Pattrick’s Skylark
- Die Roten Punkte
I Get By With a Little Help
My latest two-part series on the Baby Seal blog was something of a challenge to set up. I’ve loved reading horror fiction from a young age, so writing the first piece was an absolute pleasure. However, finding a quality Kiwi horror writer to interview was not as simple as I thought.
In the end, the Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand stepped in to help:
I fielded responses from several fantastic writers, and in the end chose to speak with Matt and Debbie Cowens. These two are the husband and wife team behind 2012 mash-up novel, Mansfield with Monsters. I’m not overtly a fan of the mash-up genre, but as a die-hard Katherine Mansfield admirer I did enjoy the chance to discuss two of my favourite literary topics in the one interview.
SpecFic NZ’s Liz Gatens praised the piece, saying:
In other news, I enjoyed interviewing Craig Sisterson of Crime Watch blog for next week’s Richmond Leader. I stumbled across the blog while researching an article on Bev Robitai’s Murder in the Second Row, which is set in the Theatre Royal in Nelson. When I learned Craig had grown up in Richmond, I decided he would make an excellent subject for our “Two Minutes With” section.