auckland launch: three words

 

Thank you to everyone who came along to the Audio Foundation last night (Saturday) and made the Auckland launch of Three Words AMAZING.

Special thanks to Miriam Harris and Linda Lew for their tremendous opening speeches.

Huge thank yous to the performers: Andra, Raewyn Alexander, Rachel Shearer, Vila, Ducklingmonster, Jess Ica and Ary.

Ginormous thank yous to our Audio Foundation hosts Sam and Pat.

Mighty thanks to our publisher, Beatnik Press.

Thanks to all the book contributors who came.

Thanks to everyone who brought refreshments.

And thank you to everyone who bought a copy of Three Words. It was EPIC!

If you haven't bought the book yet, come to the Wellington launch on Saturday 12 March, Meow on Edward Street, 3pm, or order direct from Beatnik here.

 

Miriam Harris gave a wonderful speech to set the scene for Three Words and start the proceedings!

 

 

 

Linda Lew's terrific speech included the fact that Three Words was the first publication to pay her for her creative work.

 

 

Then the performances began!

 

 

Rachel Shearer started off the performances with some meditative and evocative noise.

 

 

 

 

Rae Joyce read "Immaculate" and "Exhumed From Earth's End".

 

 

 

 

The Audio Foundation provided us with a fantastic venue where people could mingle in various zones, including the aquarium-like performance room, the books, binge and blather room, and all manner of nooks and crannies where people could lurk about taking pictures, look at slides of the book and generally rave about Three Words!

 

 

Indira Neville talks comics with Neal Curtis.

 

Team Beatnik were on hand to sell copies of our beautiful book.

Robert Sullivan, Beatnik's Sally Greer, Sarah Laing and Three Words contributor Erin Fae chat animatedly.

There was a lot of movement between the variously lit zones!

 

Three Words contributor Raewyn Alexander gave a terrific poetry performance.

 

 

Sarah Laing travelled up from Wellington to join in with the celebrations.

 

Sam Orchard, clearly overwhelmed by the performances!

 

 

 

 

 The Audio Foundation fish featured in a number of performances! 

 

 

 

 

Three Words editors shufty-up for a photo or two.

 

Or three...

 

Or four...

 

Or five! (Ideas for more anthologies?)

 

It was an evening to celebrate a book of firsts. And no one seemed to want it to end.

 

All photos credit to Isobel Hillman © 2016

 

rae joyce talks five

Three Words co-editor Rae Joyce talks comics with Wellington City Libraries Comicsfest 2015.

creative new zealand: three words thanks

 

We are extremely grateful to Creative New Zealand for awarding us a grant to fund Three Words. This means that as well as covering our printing and production costs, we can also pay our contributors. Fom this project's conception, remuneration was something that Indira, Sarah and me (Rae) felt was really important and to achieve it for our contributors is beyond brilliant and a tangible first step towards redressing the gender and status imbalance in mainstream NZ comics literature! Thank you, CNZ!

We'd like to extend our thanks to  Thanks so much to Ruth Boyask, Dylan Horrocks, Ant Sang and Tim Bollinger for their amazing references, and to Alie Mcpherson and Jessica Hansell aka Coco Solid for permitting us to use their work in the proposal.

Thanks, too, to Sarah for working really hard to put together our successful funding application. There's no stopping Three Words now!

meet the editors: rae joyce

Rae Joyce is an AUT award winning graphic poet, was mentored by Dylan Horrocks and features in New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels (Hicksville Press).

  

click on image to read full comic

Her graphic work has been published in international poetry and academic journals, and she was invited to be the first graphic artist published in the University of Stockholm journal Two Thirds North.

In 2013, she was Artist in Residence at Counterexample Poetics.

Since 2009, she has authored a popular comics, art and literature blog and from 2011 – 2012, she drew and published a page a day of the epic graphic web comic/poem Escape Behaviours. She has just been selected to participate in the NZ Book Council Graphic Novelist Residency Exchange in Auckland and Taiwan.

click on image to read full comic

AKA Rachel J Fenton, she is currently a finalist in the Dundee International Book Prize, judged by Neil Gaiman and Ellie Catton voting Booker judge Stuart Kelly.

 

She won Plymouth University’s 7th annual Short Fiction Competition and was shortlisted for The Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize, the Fish International Poetry Prize, Fish One Page Prize, the 6th annual Short Fiction Competition, the Binnacle Ultra Short Competition, and other listings include the The Kathleen Grattan Award, Bristol Prize and the Sean O’ Faolain International Short Story Competition. Her work is published in JAAM, Brief, Otoliths, Blackmail Press, The Stinging Fly Magazine, Short Fiction #7, and many others, and has been anthologised.

  

click on image to read full comic 

She is features editor for Flash Frontier, was a guest reader at the National Flash Fiction Day celebrations, Page to Stage, and the 2013 Plymouth International Book Festival.