Wellywood Woman Leaves For Other Gardens

Time to turn 'Wellywood Woman' to compost, take it to new gardens, real and metaphorical. Time to go.  

Blogger's been unsatisfactory for a while, since format changes caused some intros to drop out; and other ugly problems.

So I've taken posts that I still love, and that readers have loved, to my Medium publications (which I enjoy looking at and you may find useful or even entertaining).

#womeninfilm, #festivals & #databases

Festivals truly matter for #womeninfilm. Some are for women. Looking for a list of women’s film festivals? Women's experience of and activism at Cannes? Are you working above or below the line and looking for your specialist #womeninfilm databases? This is for you. 

Women's Film Activism 

Podcasts, interviews & analysis from the global #womeninfilm movement since 2009, with lots about Aotearoa New Zealand of course. So many activists I love and whose work I admire in this publication. May they always be remembered!

Women Filmmakers: Interviews 

More women whose work I love, telling me and others about their filmmaking practices and philosophy. From Aotearoa and other places.

Wellywood Woman Diary

What I'm reading. What I'm watching. What I'm doing. Most of these posts could go in one of the other publications. But they also reflect my daily life, especially my writing life. So they're here.

Spiral Collectives 

A selection of posts from the Spiral Collectives, operating in Aotearoa New Zealand for more than 45 years.

Poet and activist Heather McPherson founded Spiral in 1975. 

Key Spiral information is available alongside details of its associated organisations, Women's Gallery and Kidsarus 2, at Anne Else's Women Together project for Manatū Taonga, the Ministry of Culture & Heritage; and in Wikipedia, thanks to @chocmilk.

Extensive Spiral, Women's Gallery and Kidsarus 2 collections are held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

In a recent review of Patricia Grace's memoir From the Centre (2021), Emma Espiner wrote– 

'If you consider the history of New Zealand writing, it is both frightening and inspiring how influential the Spiral collective has been. This is the group who published Keri Hulme’s The Bone People and J.C. Sturm’s The House of the Talking Cat, among other brilliant works which were unable to find support elsewhere. A group of women from the collective published Grace’s famous children’s story The Kuia and the Spider. From the time this book was published, Grace always insisted on reo Māori versions of her children’s books.' 

Kete– Kura Walker née Rua Photograph– Arekahānara Design– J Terre Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa!

Dispatches: North Nigeria 

Changing Lives. One at a Time. Kano, Maiduguri, Chibok, Baga. #BokoHaram. Almajirai. #BringBackOurGirls. Orphans. Imagination. Hard Work. Hope. Via poet, artist and activist Fiona Lovatt and pretty amazing. To be updated.

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My love and warm thanks to all those who answered my questions with such care and often in great depth. Not that easy by email. If only there'd always been Zoom, with its RECORD & TRANSCRIBE functions! 

And to those who allowed me to crosspost or republish their writing, who wrote specially for this site, commented here or by email, often looooong after I published a post. And to those who amplified what's here. To those whose friendships started here and nourished and continue to nourish me.

A special thank you to Matthew Hammett Knott for this story about me on Indiewire: it's the best survey of the conceptual framework I worked within.

Gosh it was all a lot of hard work. And often a lot of fun. And I'm glad it's over.

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Facebook 

Development

Screens & Women: Books, Festivals, News, Opportunities (used mostly as a personal tab space)

Twitter

@7r4sm home stuff etc & Spiral

@devt screens & screen activism

instagram

@spiralcollectives: women artists, writers & filmmakers, with Aotearoa New Zealand emphasis (used to be @wellywoodwoman).

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