NEW ZEALAND WRITING RESOURCES — A list of websites, resources, and poetry published in New Zealand.

INTERNATIONAL POETRY WEBSITES AND RESOURCES — A list of websites and resources published around the world.

CREATIVE WRITING COURSES IN NEW ZEALAND — A list of creative writing and poetry courses around New Zealand.

New Zealand Writing Resources

Learning to Write Haiku – A Teachers’ Guide K. Raine

The Big Idea is an online community of New Zealand’s creative industries providing access to networks, industry news, current job opportunities, professional development, forums, international news and much more. http://www.bigidea.co.nz/

Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop publishes and sells a range of New Zealand literature, both fiction and non-fiction, and poetry. http://www.earlofseacliff.co.nz

fuel4arts.com highlights the latest arts marketing resources available and delivers free audience and market development tools and ideas to professional arts marketers and artists. http://www.fuel4arts.com/

The New Zealand Book Council is an independent, non-profit body dedicated to promoting and celebrating books and reading. The Council is funded by grants from Creative New Zealand, one-off sponsorship and grants, and members’ subscriptions. http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/index.html

New Zealand Books Abroad is an online bookshop specialising in New Zealand titles. http://www.nzbooksabroad.com/

The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre hosts a free internet archive texts and images with a predominantly New Zealand and Pacific Island focus. http://www.nzetc.org/

New Zealand Society of Authors supports writers through advocacy and representation, providing programmes and services and their affiliation to International PEN. http://www.authors.org.nz/

Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa Over 3000 titles of NZ poetry from the 19th Century to the present day.

International poetry websites and resources

Online at the BBC DIY Poetry Making Kit ­

Black Cat Poems is an online library of poems categorised by poet or subject. It’s part of a larger directory service of all sorts of other interesting links. They are mostly American, but there are portals to government departments in Australia, Canada, India and the UK as well.

Dead Poets’ Society: For those who like to pay homage to departed poets, a handy website tells you where to find them.

Guardian Poetry Pages: Want to have your work reviewed by a published poet? Looking for objective feedback? Every month, The Guardian Books poetry workshop is hosted by a different poet who sets an exercise, chooses the most interesting responses and offers an appraisal of them.

Interactive Publications, the independent Australian publisher of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, has useful advice on marketing your poetry book.

In The Know is a publishers/agents site, which now has ‘Tinseltown’ agents and film production companies added to it. http://www.everyonewhosanyone.com/

That’s What It Meant: Symbolism in Poetry  A clear and useful introduction to the use of symbolism in poetry, especially relevant to emerging poets  looking for a way in to more “poetic” poetry. (Contributed by Dylan, Seattle.)

poemsplease.me is a funky little interactive UK site with some useful information (see Write Stuff) and a competition in which prizes include the illustration of winning poems by international artists. Don’t be fooled by the URL suffix ‘me’ – it’s not a country, just a clever device as part of the site’s name. Poems Please Me is also on Facebook.

The Poetry Archive is the “World’s premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work” audio (and some video).

The Poetry Archive of Aotearoa New Zealand New Zealand’s own archive of poetry, collected by Michael O’Leary and Niel Wright.

Poetry International showcases poets from around the world, and in response to local events. They present a wide variety of international poets and poems, though none from New Zealand.

The Poetry Kit is a UK website providing a poetry resource site with over 3000 unique visitors each day. Numerous listings include publishers, competitions, courses, funding, events, festivals and magazine listings.

The Poetry Library has a full list of UK poetry competitions and lots more, including a poetry writing page, and you can register for their regular newsletter.

Proof Positive is largely a photographic resource site, but it has a large writing component as well, and membership access to writing contests.

Rhyme Desk is an interactive website that helps with those pesky rhymes when your brain just can’t come up with them. It’s also got a syllable counting tool and links to share your creations on social media.

Snorkel has a special interest in bringing together the creative writings of Australians and New Zealanders.

UK Poetry Society – check out its educational resources for schools and teachers’ resources.

Unquiet Desperation – a poetry magazine published in England but also distributed in the US, Canada and Europe. “Our philosophy is that poetry and indeed all forms of art should be available free of cover charge and free of ads. We have a website to accompany our print zine, and we invite all artists, poets and writers that share this view to come and join our site and get involved at: http://www.unquietdesperation.co.uk/” You can download the present issue of the zine at http://www.unquietdesperation.co.uk/download

Vanity Publishing advice and warning

Whisper From the Heart, South Africa. For a look at the commercial poetry scene somewhere other than the USA and UK.

Writer Gazette – A writer’s resource site that provides tips, techniques, resources, articles, job postings, and more.

Writers’ Manual – Promoting fellow authors and freelance writers by detailing their successes.

Creative Writing Courses in New Zealand

New Zealand is rich with potential courses for new and established poets who wish to refine their skills and connect with like-minded people.

Please email info@poetrysociety.org.nz if you know of other courses we can include on this list.

NZ Writers College

NZ Writers College offers 13 specialised creative writing courses tutored by award-winning writers. The Introduction to Poetry Course and Advanced Poetry Course mentor poets one-to-one to develop 12 polished poems. See their list of creative writing courses here.

The International Institute of Modern Letters

The International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) hosts Victoria’s Creative Writing programme, offering both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

“Underlying our programme is the notion that creativity is the engine of a healthy and successful society. Our courses do not teach a specific set of predetermined skills. Rather, our aim is to develop the imaginative capacity and individual literary skills and voices of emerging writers, in a stimulating workshop environment.”

The School of English & Media Studies, Massey University

This school offers a broad array of creative writing and performance papers: poetry, fiction, plays, media script writing, travel writing, life writing, creative non-fiction, writing for children, drama in performance, creative processes.

Waiariki Institute of Technology online Diploma/Certificate in Applied Writing

This institute offers opportunites to try a number of genres – short stories, poetry, editing, writing with a Māori voice, and exploring New Zealand’s top Māori writers. The tutors are all well published authors.

Whitireia Community Polytechnic Creative Writing Courses, Wellington/Porirua

The Whitireia Creative Writing Programme was established in 1993, and was the first full-year full-time creative writing programme in New Zealand. Now it offers a wide range of options.

Students can enroll in a comprehensive course which covers a range of genres, or work within their area of specialization. They can choose a one-year diploma course, or a three-year Bachelor in Applied Arts (Creative Writing). They can study full-time or part-time. They can choose from a range of modules which are now offered online.