Performance and the Act of Writing
Sunday 16 August, 1:30 - 3:00pm
Trust Waikato,
4 Little London Lane
Free Event, no registration required.
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Photo: Anna Briggs
A conversation between award winning author Dr. David Coventry and one of New Zealand's foremost practitioners of the short story and poem, Dr. Tracey Slaughter. The pair will discuss Coventry's critically acclaimed hybrid-novel, Performance, and talk to the impossible challenges faced and surprising victories won when composing chronic illness narratives for the page.
This event is sponsored by the Waikato Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. Both authors' books will be for sale at the event.
Author
David Coventry’s first novel, The Invisible Mile, won the Hubert Church Award for Best First Book at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. It was also published in the UK and Commonwealth by Picador UK, and in the USA and Canada by Europa Editions. It has been translated into Dutch, Hebrew, Spanish, Danish and German. His second novel, Dance Prone, was published in 2020. David received an MA in Creative Writing in 2010 from the International Institute of Modern Letters, and he was the recipient of the 2015 Todd New Writer’s Bursary from Creative New Zealand.
In 2022 he completed his PhD exploring the complexities and impossibilities of living a creative life with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) – a project which was selected for the 2022 Dean’s List, and forms the basis of his novel Performance (2024). He was the 2022 Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury. He is currently the 2026 Kaipukahu Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato.
Photo: Joel Hinton
Author
Tracey Slaughter is the author of The Girls in the Red House are Singing (poems, 2024), Devil’s Trumpet (stories, 2021), Conventional Weapons (poems, 2019), Deleted Scenes for Lovers (stories, 2016), The Longest Drink in Town (novella, 2015), and Her Body Rises (poems and short stories, 2005). Her novella If There Is No Shelter was published in the UK by Ad Hoc in 2020, and her latest work the human dress is due for release in late 2026. Her writing has received numerous awards, including the 2024 Calibre Essay Prize, the 2024 Moth Short Story Prize, the 2023 Manchester Poetry Prize, the 2020 Fish Short Story Prize, the 2014 Bridport Prize, and BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards in 2004 and 2001. She won the 2015 Landfall Essay Competition, and was the recipient of the 2010 Louis Johnson New Writer’s Bursary. She teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato, and edits Poetry Aotearoa.
