Center for Pacific Island Studies

fulbright–creative new zealand pacific writers’ residency

The Fulbright–Creative New Zealand Pacific Writers’ Residency at the University of Hawai‘i began in 2004. One award is offered each year to a New Zealand–based writer, to carry out work on a writing project. The residency brings to the center, the university, and the public-at-large the work and insights of an outstanding Pacific writer.

2007
writer-in-residence
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Sarona
Aiono-Iosefa

Children and young people’s writer Sarona Aiono-Iosefa, from Aotearoa/New Zealand, was the 2007 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer-in-Residence. The author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books, she first started writing for her children, so that they could read stories about their Samoan heritage. Aiono-Iosefa used her time in Hawai‘i to complete a draft of O Se Mea e Tatau, a novella for teenagers that weaves stories of pre-Christian Sāmoa with contemporary stories and concerns. Much of her time was spent researching descriptions of the Samoan past at the University of Hawai‘i Pacific Collection, the most comprehensive collection of Pacific materials in the world.

2006
writer-in-residence
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Victor Rodger

Samoan-Palagi playwright Victor Rodger, from Aotearoa New Zealand, is the 2006 Fulbright–Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer-in-Residence at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies. His semi-autobiographical award-winning first play, Sons, explored the culture clash a young afakasi Samoan man experiences when he tries to establish a relationship with his estranged Samoan father and his half-brother, who is unaware of his existence. Issues of race and both cultural and sexual identity figure prominently in all his work, and his third play, Ranterstantrum, took a darkly funny look at contemporary race relations in Aotearoa New Zealand. His fourth play, My Name is Gary Cooper, will be performed in Aotearoa New Zealand next year. It centers around a young afakasi Samoan man who travels to 1970s Los Angeles to wreak revenge on the Palagi father who deserted his Samoan mother. A former journalist, and occasional actor, Rodger has written for film, television, and radio. While at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, Rodger will work on adapting Sons for film.

2005
writer-in-residence
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Donna Tusiata Avia

The 2005 writer-in-residence is Donna Tusiata Avia, an emerging New Zealand poet, writer, and performer of Samoan and Palagi heritage. Her first collection of poetry, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, was published in 2004 and received widespread critical acclaim. Wild Dogs began as poetry for the page, but it developed another life, intertwining poetry and theatre and eventually becoming a one-woman show. During her residency at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies during August, September, and October, Avia will be working on a second collection of poetry and developing a second theatre piece. According to Avia, “My writing has always been around issues that I feel passionately about: the search for and creation of identity, being of mixed heritage, “outsiders,” isolation, nationality and universality, unearthing the past, the views from inside and outside…the uneasy place of those who stand between, the richness and flexibility of Pacific peoples and cultures, the universality of human experience.”

2004
writer-in-residence
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Sima Urale

The inaugural recipient of the residency, in 2004, was writer and film director Sima Urale, whose award-winning films include O Tamaiti, Velvet Dreams, and Still Life, as well as music videos. Urale is a graduate of the New Zealand Drama School Toi Whakaari, in Wellington, and the Film and Television School of the Victorian College of the Arts, in Melbourne, Australia. Her writing project during the residency was to develop her first full-length feature script, Moana. In addition to working on her screenplay, Urale visited classes, showed and discussed her films, worked with high school students on media projects, and mentored other filmmakers.