2024 Kirihimete Gifting Guide

  Pukapuka make fantastic gifts for Kirihimete – especially when you are supporting kaituhi Māori! Pukapuka are the gift that keep on giving, there’s something for all ages and interests, and the perfect companion to take on holiday over Hine Raumati, even if you aren’t venturing further than your own backyard or beach. Here we […]

Author Spotlight Q&A: Shilo Kino

Shilo Kino, pictured centre

Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Maniapoto) is a writer residing in Tāmaki Makaurau. She has worked for Marae, Newsroom, North and South, The Spinoff, The Guardian and Pantograph Punch as a journalist. In 2018 Shilo was awarded a place on the Māori Literature Trust writers’ incubator, Te Papa Tupu. In 2020, she published […]

Author Spotlight Q&A: Dr Rachel Buchanan

Rachel Buchanan pictured centre, at Verb Te Aro Pā poetry event

Dr Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki iwi, Te Ātiawa) is a historian, journalist and a member of Te Aro Pā Poets collective and Te Pouhere Kōrero Māori Historians Network. She is the author of The Parihaka Album: Lest We Forget (Huia, 2009), Stop Press: The Last Days of Newspapers (Scribe, 2013) and Ko Taranaki Te Maunga (Bridget […]

Weaponising Art for Good

Steph pictured at the 2024 Hīkoi mō te Tiriti left, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke pictured centre, a picture of the hīkoi right

Since I last blogged, the world has kind of imploded. Trump was elected. That three-word sentence punches my gut with every syllable. David Seymour has carried the Treaty Principles Bill to its first hearing. My words struggle in the shallow waters of my patience for this man and his twisted vision of what Aotearoa should […]

Rā whānau Huia 15!

Three people in front of the Pikihuia Awards signage - Toni Wi centre.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the first birthday party for Huia Short Stories 15 at Unity Books in Wellington, where my friend and fellow Te Papa Tupu writer Steph Julian was reading. It’s quite cool that we’re both published in the same pukapuka alongside our other Te Papa Tupu friend Anthony Pita, who […]

Second Entry

Top left: view of the city from Taryn's window. Top right: Taryn's writing space. Bottom left: Kupu Festival space. Bottom right: Taryn at Kupu.

This is the second version of this blog post because today at the ātua wahine korero with Hana Tapiata I was inspired to relook at the purpose of my blog post and what I wanted to share, so I thought I would share some history that informs what I am writing. It is a little […]

The Choices We Make

In February this year, I was heavily pregnant with my second child. So heavy, in fact, that a major connective ligament gave up, and I could barely walk. I made the choice to submit my manuscript to Te Papa Tupu nice and early, because if I was already having this sort of problem, who knew […]

My words will not be ashes

Portrait shot of Steph Julian

Tell a writer to ‘write anything’ and they will stall. Anything is pretty big. When deciding what to talk about in this blog post, I asked myself what I would want to read. I teleported back to when I would scour the pages of blogs of Te Papa Tupu writers and wondered what I most […]