THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

This just in from Randell Cottage Writers Trust. Hinemoana Baker selected as 2024 Randell Cottage Writer in Residence  Poet and performer Hinemoana Baker (Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-Tonga, Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Kāi Tahu, England, Germany) has been selected as the 2024 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writing Fellow, and will be residing and writing in the Cottage from July to December 2024. Hinemoana will be using her six months in residence at Randell Cottage to work on a new collection of poetry, Exhaust World.  Hinemoana is a writer, performer, and educator currently based in Berlin. She has published four previous collections of poetry with Te Herenga Waka University Press: mātuhi | needle (2004), kōiwi kōiwi (2010), waha | mouth (2014) and Funkhaus (2021).   Of her new project 'Exhaust World' she says: “As the name suggests, it will feature poems of despair and desperation. There will also be a good dose of fury, revenge, and some very da...

'What's really in our food.'  A statement not question.  It's the title of the opening chapter of Lis Cowey's heartwarming and beautifully written food memoir and love letter to her two sons,  Fred and Carlo.  It starts with a memory and a 'habit'.  Frequently, at the end of a working day, Cowey was interupted at work by one of her boys calling to ask a question about a recipe or and ingredient they need for the meal they are preparing that night.  "I get this call so often that I've come to expect it," she says.  "This is an age when you can get a Google answer quicker and with less trouble than a call to me."   So, why the calls?  What is it that they really need?  "It seems you are wanting me to tell you about our food, not just any food."  She concludes, and this is the premise for this memoir, that what's really in our food, well, in any great treasured recipe, is love, memories, stories, whānau, tradition. ...

Sadly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues unabated.  Despite support from the West, sanctions, UN mandates and other diplomatic interventions, nothing has really changed.  It seems that in the case where a big, powerful nation is determined, nothing short of unmatched firepower can stop it.   This was the case against Germany in both wars, and Russia.  It goes back further to wars against Colonial powers - the David and Goliath battles have their roots in bilical times.   Military power and tactics have become increasingly more sophisticated.  Drones have take over from artillery and airforces.  Cheaper and more accurate and disposable.   Warfare maneuvers executed from on both sides are generally more complex.  But the resulting devstion is still the same.  This book is particularly timely as it recognises these conflicts.  Israel and Hamas came after publication but the story will remain the same, as a contin...

For over fifty years, esteemed anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond has travelled and navigated ‘te ao hurihuri’.  Her career and work has evolved immensely from travelling to numerous hui in her little blue VW Beetle, accompanied by Eruera and Amiria Stirling, learning te reo and tikanga at the deepest levels on these journeys.  Then in the 1980's she worked for a university marae alongside Merimeri Penfold, Patu Hohepa and Wharetoroa Kerr.  Later in the 2000's she fronted as an expert witness to provide evidence to the Waitangi Tribunal on the subject and meaning of Te Tiriti.   Like Michael King, she was a rare voice of real, valued Māori knowledge in the Pākeha world, speaking with care and empathy about tikanga and cultural practices in a way that Māori supported.  So, in other words not a dry, impersonal and often in accurate Western scientific approach.  She really knew her stuff.  And she started at a time when it was not as fashionable, or ev...

Beloved Kiwi author and playwright Renée has died.  She was 94. She passed away peacefully at her home on Monday evening.  Her publisher, agent and son reported to media in a statement, released that night. The former Randell Cottage fellow self-described as a "lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals".  Renée the Randell Cottage Writers Fellow in 2005 . Born Renée Gertrude Taylor in 1929, she had only serious started only writing after turning 50 - going by just a singular first name -  "the only one she felt was hers". She is best known for her play  'Wednesday To Come' - " about the women in a working-class family coping in the Depression… famously set around a coffin and includes scones being baked on stage", It wasc first performed in 1984. Continuing writi into her 90s, publishing her first crime novel only m few years ago, followed by a sequel. It was shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Awards.  A memoir, ' 'Thes...