Devonport Library Associates’ (DLA) series of library talks feature conversations, stories, experiences and perspectives of some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s significant writers across all genres.
The Godwits- In Pursuit of Champions: September 26, 2023
Keith Woodley, godwit expert and manager of the Miranda Shorebird Centre and author of Godwits, Long Haul Champions tells the fascinating story of the godwits’ epic migrations, and the dedicated efforts to conserve wetlands and their biodiversity. With archaeologist and writer, Dave Veart, he discusses godwits’ innate skills in weather prediction and global navigation, weaving the latest scientific findings into history, literature and folklore.
Posse of Poets celebrated National Poetry Day, 25 August, with Devonport poets both emerging and well-known. The event also commemorated two beloved local icons, Kevin Ireland and Jack Smith, who passed away in 2023, both in their 80s.
Poets featured in order of appearance are Geoff Chapple and Miriam Beaston, Ian Rockel, Denys Trussell, Jan Salter-Dickens, Darren Crosby (RNZN,) Lynn Dawson, Greg Hall, Eliza Sagar, Te Awhina Arahanga
Writer, archaeologist, historian and local resident Dave Veart speaks about the Maori archaeology of Te Hau Kapua Devonport Peninsula on Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland’s North Shore/ Te Raki Paewhenua.
Trained as an anthropologist, he worked as a Department of Conservation historian and archaeologist for over twenty five years and is well known for his documentation of heritage areas around the kainga.
“Archaeology fascinates me because it adds layers to our understanding of the past in a way that ordinary history can’t. This is because each place gets to tell its own story. We all live on top of the people who went before, sometimes, as with the pa sites at Takarunga/Mt Victoria…. and the gardens, and places where people fished and landed their waka.”
Dave is introduced by Devonport local, well-known radio identity, karate instructor and bee-keeper Danny Watson.
Graeme Lay sits down with Kevin Ireland to celebrate the end of the year with all our supporters.
With thanks to The Devonport Library and all of the Library Associates members.
Tracey Barnett hosts an invigorating panel discussion on ‘What We Aren’t Telling our Daughters’.
With guests Rose Evans, Tessa Duder, Augustine Morgan-Guthrie and Michelle Leggott.
‘I Have Loved Me a Man’ takes readers inside the social revolution that has moved New Zealand from the 1960s to the present day through the story of the one, the only, queer Māori performance artist: Mika.
Join author Sharon Mazer and Mika as they discuss his incredible stories and experiences.
Join eminent NZ authors Kevin Ireland and C. K. Stead as they launch Stead’s latest book, ‘That Derrida Whom I Derided Died’ at Devonport Library.
Have the Baby Boomers stolen our future? Or are today’s millennials too entitled to realise how good they have it? David and Mary Margaret Slack lead a lively debate for and against each side….
Join Massey University Author Peter wells as he and Nicola Legat discuss his latest work ‘Dear Oliver’
Bronwyn Holloway Smith takes us through her journey to find many of the lost and iconic murals of E Mervyn Taylor.
Two ANZAC diggers – one who lost his mind and the other who remembered every detail. View the Launch of two ANZAC biographies; Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac and Gallipoli to the Somme: Recollections of a New Zealand Infantryman.
Proudly brought to you by the Devonport Library Associates and Massey University Press, the evening featured readings by ten poets, including Elizabeth Morton, Alistair Paterson, and Albert Wendt.
The mighty tōtara is one of the biggest and oldest trees in the New Zealand forest. The heart of Maori carving and culture it also trails No.8 wire as fence posts on settler farms. Tōtara’s story is the story of New Zealand.
We are a democracy founded on and crafted from the meeting of two very different world views: those of Maori and Pākeha. Dame Anne Salmond suggests that the confluence of those views informs a new way of addressing the care of our rivers and land, seas and peoples, and could provide an example of the solution to the global challenges which face us all.
Pacifica poet Selena Tusitala Marsh brings a stimulating mix of sharp intelligence, warrior fierceness, perceptive humour and energy to this new collection of work. David Eggleton describes it as ‘spikey and fierce, brash and vital, by turns, comic, irreverent, poignant, rhapsodic, anthemic, confrontational.
Graeme Lay is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction set in the islands of the South Pacific. The latest of these is his novel ‘Fletcher of the Bounty.’
To mark the official launch of the Devonport Writers’ Collection you are invited to come and meet these wonderful people, raise a glass to their talent and achievement. This will be held in the superb setting of our library, with APO cellist Paul van Houtte to offer a musical intermission and provide music throughout the evening.
Birds chirp and monkeys chatter, but only humans possess the extraordinary power to tell stories and offer explanations, to inform and persuade, to use the baffle and bullshit we call language. How come?