Earlier this year, we tracked down writers who had their first publication with Write On Magazine and we buddied them with current students.
Freddie Gormack-Smith writes flash fiction and poetry. He is currently studying English at Canterbury University. His work has regularly appeared in the annual Re-draft anthologies and Write-On Magazine, where he had the privilege to be a featured writer in 2019.
" I remember getting my very fIrst poem published at the age of around 12 and feeling this immense sense of pride and accomplishment that my work was physically in print in a magazine that you could read and show to people."
freddie
Jaren is in Year 9 and started at Write On Saturday classes when he was a pretty tall 7-year-old. He has been published three times in the Write On magazine and has appeared on stage in 17 shows.
Future Directions (2) by Jaren was inspired by Freddie's piece Future Directions published in Write On in 2013
Future Directions (2)
by Jaren
The monsters met in a dark, gloomy lair
They had a discussion, and soon they declared
That because of actions they couldn’t condone
“The time has come to take the throne!”
Suggested a witch from a coven
“Last week, a small child shoved me into my oven!”
The werewolves took the observatories to look up at the sky
And the dragons took mountains, where they could beat their wings up high
as their new domain. The krakens claimed the docks
and when the vampires took the castles they couldn't be stopped
The yeti’s arrived from their mountaintop homes
Through snow and ice, they boldly roamed
Maybe we shouldn’t have imagined all of these horrible things
because perhaps they will be the ones outliving
us, and not the other way around.
You can read more by Freddie and an interview between Jaren and Freddie 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