Earlier this year, we tracked down writers who had their first publication with Write On Magazine and we buddied them with current students.
Jess Fiebig has been a student and tutor at Write On. Her poetry has been published in journals such as Aotearotica, Best New Zealand Poems, Catalyst, Landfall, Takahē, Turbine, Poetry NZ Yearbook and New Zealand Poetry Society. Jess' first collection of poetry, My Honest Poem, was published in 2020 by Auckland University Press. Her work explores themes such as madness, sex, love, family violence, friendship, drugs and dislocation.
"I remember Saturday mornings at the Arts Centre, it always felt so cool to be in the big, old buildings. There was always a Saturday morning market on and we would often go and observe and write about the people we saw.
I remember having some amazing tutors including Apirana Taylor and the wonderful Frankie McMillan. Frankie helped me understand the importance of detail and imagery in writing."
Jess
Brianna is in Year 11. She loves to write fantasy. She is in the middle of competing in the Brain Bee neuroscience competition and dreams of being a computational neuroscientist and a published author.
End of a Book by Brianna was inspired by Jess's piece, End of a Chapter which was first published in Write On in 2004.
End of a Book
by Brianna
I have become a character in a book -
not an important one, just the girl on the bus
and the protagonist never notices
I’m here, waiting to be understood
I’m here in the morning crowd
in my seat on the bus
looking at photos of their party
I didn’t attend.
For one fleeting moment, they see me
have a profound thought (about something or other)
Then they’re talking to someone else
Everyone knows I’m not in
this sequel. So I sit
plotting my fanfic.
You can read more by Jess and an interview between Brianna and Jess here:
Thank you to Plains FM for support with the recording of the voices and to Copyright Licensing NZ for a funding grant that allowed us to archive 30 years of magazines and to develop this project.
The funding from Copyright Licensing NZ also went towards the redesign of our print magazine Write On 60: Memories and Milestones. It is a beautiful new design for our anthology. Copies are still available to order HERE
(c) Write On 2023