Joan Fleming: Ripe Fig Talk
Sunday 17 August, 1:30 - 3:00pm
Trust Waikato,
4 Little London Lane
Free Event, no registration required.
Joan Fleming, the current Kaipukahu Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato, is writing what she calls a poet's novel: a failed love story that cracks open into an ecological folktale. She’ll be in conversation with the Waikato branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors about new directions with The Fig Book, cold water swims, the importance of absurdity and humour in her writing, and creative citizenship.
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This event is sponsored by the Waikato Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors.
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Author
Joan Fleming’s latest book is the verse novel Song of Less (Cordite Books), which explores the limits of love, language, and individualism in the ruins of ecological collapse. Her current project, The Fig Book, is a tragicomic failed love story that opens into an ecological folktale. She is also the author of The Same as Yes and Failed Love Poems (THWUP), and her nonfiction can be found in Meanjin, Westerly, The Pantograph Punch, Verge, Island, Cordite Poetry Review, and Correspondence 1.1 and 1.2 from The Physics Room. Her honours include the Biggs Poetry Prize, the Verge Prize for Poetry, the Harri Jones Memorial Prize from the Hunter Writers’ Centre, shortlisting for the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest and the Matariki Short Short Story Celebration, a Creative New Zealand Writing Fellowship, and a Michael King Writers’ Centre established residency. She is currently the 2025 Kaipukahu Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato.
Photo: Erik Kennedy
