Paula Morris
Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Manuhiri) is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, essayist and editor. She directs the creative writing programme at the University of Auckland and is the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature and Wharerangi, the Māori literature hub, and co-editor of Ko Aotearoa Tātou, an anthology of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art created in response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks.
Paula also writes about Korean film and television at koreaseen.com. She has been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships, including the 2018 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship.
2022 festival sessions
Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde
- a lecture
Award-winning writer Paula Morris delivers a lecture on the fascinating, chaotic and ground-breaking life of the New Zealand journalist, poet, fiction writer and war correspondent Iris Wilkinson, aka Robin Hyde. Paula and distinguished photographer Haru Sameshima went off the beaten track to produce Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde, a "picture book" made for grown-ups which explores Robin Hyde by visiting three locations of her life.
Shining Land is the second in the kōrero series of picture books edited by Lloyd Jones, in which leading New Zealand writers and artists collaborate to 'stretch' the bounds of what a book can do.
An Hour With Paula Morris
- in conversation with Rachael King
Paula Morris has become a vital voice in New Zealand literature, with highly acclaimed short stories, essays and novels, including Rangatira, fiction winner at the 2012 NZ Post Book Awards and Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards. But her work goes well beyond her own pen, as an advocate for New Zealand literature and Māori writers. Paula is the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature and Wharerangi, the Māori literature hub, and co-editor of Ko Aotearoa Tātou, an anthology of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art created in response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks.
Paula speaks to fellow novelist Rachael King about a literary life, as writer, teacher, mentor and advocate.