Annah Comyn's image captures a totara being endowed with the spirit of the god Okatia. Kane Parsons has received $16,400 to compose The Legend of Okatia.
Annah Comyn's image captures a totara being endowed with the spirit of the god Okatia. Kane Parsons has received $16,400 to compose The Legend of Okatia.
Harold Weekes sadly died before the book he inspired will be published but his story will live on in Before We Forget: Stories across the Manawatū and Rangitīkei.
Manawatū writer Carly Thomas interviewed Weekes when she was researching the history of Feilding Agricultural High School, which Weekes attended.
For Before We Forget, Thomas will record the stories of 20 older rural residents. She is one of 14 recipients of Earle Creativity and Development Trust 2021 awards.
The trust was established by Richard and Mary Earle to nurture innovative ideas and talent in Manawatū and Rangitīkei. Trustee Sheridan Hickey paid tribute to Mary, who was born in Scotland and died in April, by reading a Robbie Burns poem at the award presentation ceremony last Friday.
Thomas spoke to Weekes in his home near Taihape for about five hours over many cups of tea. He died three months later aged 96. Thomas received $6500 from the Earle Trust for her book.
Richard Mays received $5000 for Palmy Poetry: the 150th Anniversary Anthology of Te Papaiōea/Palmerston North. Mays said the idea had been gestating for 20 years and had resurfaced with the publication of poems such as James Brown's I Come from Palmerston North and Karlo Mila's poem about Highbury.
The collection of 80 poems, including some from Rangitāne, will be a historic and literary survey of how culture and arts have gone hand in hand in Palmerston North, Mays said.
Miriam Sharland received $5000 for her ecobiography of the region with the working title Heart Stood Still. She is doing a Master of Creative Writing at Massey University and her book will capture her exploration of the region on foot and bike. An ecobiography is where the human protagonist is treated equally with non-human characters.
Rangitāne's hosting of the inaugural Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival in 2005 will be explored in Eljon Fitzgerald's illustrated book Te Matatini ki Rangitāne 2005-2007. For Rangitāne, this was the most significant tribal event in more than a century with the iwi's identity and manaakitanga showcased to the world, Fitzgerald said. He received $7650.
Poet Tim Upperton said his $7500 grant was a godsend, as it would enable him to spend the summer writing poems. Auckland University Press will publish his book next year.
Rachel Dore received $5130 for her novel A Respectable Veneer. It is set in 1954 Palmerston North and deals with the dilemmas encountered by characters set adrift in an unforgiving and judgemental society.
Marilyn Wightman and Stevie Dallenger received $5000 for the book Hearths of Feilding Families, in which each house will have a chapter.
This settler cottage Pearce's whare in Feilding will feature in the book Hearths of Feilding Families. Photo / Supplied
The Feilding & Districts Community Archive is producing the publication as many of the photos to be used in the book are stored at the archive. All money raised will go to the archive to finance needed conservation supplies for processing donated records, Wightman said.
The eighth recipient of a grant in history and literature is Dorian Wilson: $5270 for his Terrace End Cemetery Project exploring ways death is memorialised;
Grants in Music Manawatū Youth Orchestra - $8000 for orchestral string and wind intensive workshop Manawatū Youth for Music Trust - $5000 for a composer in residence Renaissance Singers - $5400 for the concert When Choir and Percussion Meet that will feature 17 different percussion instruments Kathy Clark - $5400 for the Gumboots Brass and Wind Ensemble, a summer camp near Taihape, with professional cornet player Harmen Vanhoorne Kane Parsons - $16,400 to compose The Legend of Okatia, a bicultural classical orchestral piece featuring taonga pūoro Shellie Hanley - $7000 for Te Huia. A Visual Sound Portrait, to compose huia birdsong, projection mapping installation, a book and watercolour paintings.
