Auckland Writers Festival, May 2015
On Sunday 17 May at 10.30am, I’ll participate in a session chaired by Gregory O’Brien, titled ‘Etched in Pain’, in which I’ll discuss How Does It Hurt? and its confrontation of the language of suffering.
The Launch of How Does It Hurt?, 18 November 2014
Professor Damien Wilkins’ launch speech, followed by my excerpted speech.
Launch speeches for How Does It Hurt? - These Rough Notes
Journalist Sarah Wilson responds to the launch of How Does It Hurt? in her blog, Writehanded, 26 November 2014.
How Does It Hurt? - Writehanded
Philip Matthews’ article, ‘The Land of Pain’, appeared in the Dominion Post Weekend and the Christchurch Press, 15 November 2014.
'The Land of Pain' - Dominion Post
‘Writing Through Pain’, an article in Victorious, Spring 2014.
'Writing Through Pain' - Victorious
At the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival, following the session for How Does It Hurt?, I received a Nigel Cox/Unity Books Award. The work was described as 'a necessary, profound and instructive book, for which there has not been a precedent––by that we mean there is nothing else like it––and for which there has been a yearning gap. [...] In a year in which there are no national Book Awards we could not let this book go unrecognised. It is a book Nigel Cox would have been in awe of.' I felt humbled and moved: my admiration for Nigel Cox was, and is, huge, as is the esteem in which I hold Unity Books.