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 […]

First we need to dream

From left to right: Te Papa Tupu booklet, Toni in front of a black telephone booth, a knitting project, holding Stephen King novel

It took me ten years to learn how to knit. I started when my sister’s oldest girl was born. For some reason, partly me being a nana and partly a belief in the magical powers of YouTube, I was convinced I’d be able to make her a cute little hat. But I was a terrible […]

Koha / Wero

Headshot of Claire, wearing a green top with a grey background.

It has been, at time of writing, less than three weeks since Te Papa Tupu Workshop One. How is that possible? Borne aloft in the whirlwind of those two days, it felt as if months of mātauranga were being imparted. I know I’m not the only one who felt that way. Yet, coming down from […]

First Entry

Taryn's writing space: a desk, stacks of books. Pictured in purple, red and blue.

I have been writing for a long time, but really, for no time. At least that’s what it feels like. This thing called writing is interesting – we all do it in some way or another. We are all storytellers in some form, whether it be through words, or images, or intense drunken bathroom yarns […]