INFO
| When | Saturday 9 November 2024 |
| From | 6.00pm – 6.45pm |
| Where | The Ferret Bookshop, Pōneke |
| Address | 175 Cuba Street, Wellington |
| Admission | Entry by donation, $5 suggested |
Kōrero
In their debut novels, romesh dissanayake (When I open the shop) and Louise Wallace (ASH) bring their characters to a simmer before turning up the heat. Join the authors as they discuss how they fine-tuned their books’ emotional landscapes, engineering escalating tension and flooding releases of pressure. Chaired by Hasib Hourani (Australia), this talk will dive beneath the narrative surface of the two books, uncovering how the authors’ inventive approaches immerse readers in their characters’ grief, despair, love and rage.
ABOUT
romesh dissanayake is a Sri Lankan and Koryo Saram writer, poet and chef from Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His work explores ideas of identity, migration, decolonisation and place. romesh's poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in various print and online publications. His first novel, When I open the shop, was the winner of the 2022 Modern Letters Fiction Prize and is published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. His chapbook poetry collection, ‘Favourite Flavour House’, is featured in AUP New Poets 10 published by Auckland University Press. He has cooked at Mabel's Burmese Eat and Drink Shop and Rita in Aro Valley.
Louise Wallace is the author of four collections of poems, the latest of which is This Is a Story About Your Mother (2023). She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal publishing the work of young writers from Aotearoa, and the editor of Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2022. She is a recipient of the Biggs Prize for Poetry and a Robert Burns fellow. She grew up in Gisborne and lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin. ASH is her first novel.
Hasib Hourani is a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, editor, arts worker and educator living on unceded Wangal Country. His 2021 essay, ‘when we blink’ was shortlisted in the Liminal and Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize and appears in the anthology, Against Disappearance. His debut book, rock flight, was released in 2024 with Giramondo (AU) and Prototype (UK), and will be released with New Directions (US) in April 2025.