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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.
Marisa Meapu
Marisa Maepu was the 2011 writer-in-residence. She has published numerous fiction and non-fiction short stories. One of them, '88, was a winner in the New Zealand national competition Six Pack Three. Marisa has also published several children stories in Samoan language. These are used in New Zealand schools to support the Samoan language curriculum. While in Hawaiʻi, Marisa researched and began writing a historical novel set in Sāmoa, American Samoa, and New Zealand.
Makerita Urale
Playwright, author, filmmaker, and
producer Makerita Urale was the 2010 writer-in-residence. She was in residence
at the center for three months, beginning in August. While in residence,
Urale worked on her playscript, The Heathen’s Way, building
on ideas she first explored in her play, Frangipani Perfume, published
in 2004. Frangipane Perfume toured internationally and was named one
of the top ten plays of the decade by literary magazine The Listener.
As a film director, producer, and writer, Urale has a number of films
to her credit, including The Hibiscus, Savage Symbols, Mob Daughters,
Children of the Revolution, and Waiata Whawhai: Songs of Protest.
Toa Fraser
Celebrated playwright, screenwriter,
and film director Toa Fraser was the 2009 Pacific writer-in-residence.
A Pacific storyteller with a global perspective, Fraser began in theater.
His first play, BARE, won Best New Play at the 1998 Chapman Tripp Awards
in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1998. His award-winning play No. 2 (1999),
a solo show, was the basis for his debut feature film, Naming Number
Two (2006), starring well-known American actress Ruby Dee as an
aging Fijian matriarch who commands her children to prepare one last
great feast, at which she will name her successor. His current project
is a screenplay of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s novella The Beach at
Falesa.
David Young
Writer, environmentalist, and historian David Young was the 2008 writer-in-residence.
His work covers the nature-culture relationship, including perspectives
from indigenous nature and indigenous culture. Among Young’s books
is Woven by Water: Histories from the Whanganui
River, a study of race
relations on what is arguably the most distinctively “Māori” river
in Aotearoa New Zealand. His most recent book are Our
Islands, Our Selves: A History of Conservation in New Zealand; Whio:
Saving New Zealand’s Endangered Blue Duck; and Keeper of the Long View:
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainability. In Hawai‘i, Young
continued his focus on conservation issues and addressed the need for
a cross-cultural dialogue on the source of pure water and its cultural
and spiritual significance.
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 novel that weaves stories of pre-Christian
Sāmoa with contemporary stories and concerns. Much of her time in Hawai‘i
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.
Victor Rodger
Samoan-Palagi playwright Victor Rodger, from Aotearoa New Zealand, was
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, was first performed
in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2007. 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.
Donna Tusiata Avia
The 2005 writer-in-residence was 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, Avia worked on a second
collection of poetry and developed 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.”
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.
© 2005,
UHM, Center for Pacific Island Studies. | Site
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