Martin Porter, Whangarei writer of flash fiction and convenor of monthly flash fiction group meetings, has had a fresh piece published in Flash Frontier:

 

Mollymawk

Martin Porter

The very oldest age the least.

It is no coincidence that survivors become the founders.

The remainder are dead.

As she gazes at the fishmonger’s slab, tears well up with her memory. She dreams of cruising currents of pelagic wind, wings tipping the white blades of breakers billowing in the wind. She has been looking for riches across the oceans, in the sea spray, under the sand of lost atolls. Now treasure grows within.

She glides with the prevailing wind. She scents the tang of shore pine twisted and bent over to pluck medicinal thyme for healing. She tastes the saltiness of the thin gauze of spindrift. She walks the binding of land and strand, between the trees, foot on grass, foot on cool grass. She is half monster, living in the marginalia of the book of the world.

There is stillness in the continual beating of the waves. She has taken root, Princess Anemone on a rock. No longer mollymawk, no longer wanderer, she is woman. Once albatross, wings outstretched and huge, eyes keen and knowing, drifting from birdhood to maturity. Today, she flies. Tomorrow, the invisible hatchling will root her, unseen through the mists of hope, the need for soft nest and security, the touch of earth beneath the soles, the touch of firm earth beneath the soles.

It is fruitless listening for the sea in the empty conch.

All migrants are voluntary exiles, traitors betraying their past.

All children emerge from the shattered egg.

 

Martin Porter , born in Jersey, lives a quiet life in New Zealand writing poetry and flash fiction. He has recently had flash fiction published in Bare Fiction magazine, won the Northland New Zealand flash fiction prize in 2012 and 2014 and read at Auckland Library for the NZ National Flash Fiction Day Awards 2013.Some of his work and accompanying notes can be found here and here.

On this Diploma of Applied Writing course at NorthTec, they teach how to chuck an ebook online. Some of the recent e-novels and e-short stories e-published on Amazon and Smashwords which you should check out include:

Wendy Megget’s ‘The Little Bullying Book‘

Diana Menefy’s short story ‘River Crossing’

Janine McVeagh’s young adult novel ‘The Trouble With Water’

and ‘Forming a Picture of You’ poetry collection by Justine Payen and Kevin Baddeley

 

 

 

 

The winners of the 2016 Short Story Competition for Young Writers hosted by Whangarei Friends of the Library in conjunction with Whangarei Libraries have been announced.

The winners were announced at a prize giving ceremony on Monday 31 October in Whangarei. Winners received book vouchers and a share of $1000 prize money. Thanks WHG Friends of the Library for supporting the youngsters.

 15 to 18 years

1st: Abby Buckthought

2nd: Tikva van der Vlugt

3rd: Vaanipriya Diwan

Highly Commended:  Levi Cohen, Jessica MacMenigall, Devon Pomfrett.

 12 to 14 years

1st: Aimee Clernow

2nd: Ben Murray

3rd: Caitlin Morris

Highly Commended:  Kate Barrett, Hanna Ireson and Ronan Payinda.

9 to 11 years

1st: Jessica Liu

2nd: Keira Hardham

3rd: Ben Magee

Highly Commended:  Paige Cleaver, Anais Hall, Zoe Ireson.

 

http://botur.tumblr.com/post/153394805800/short-fiction-rock-or-bust

Don’t get all lookin-over-ya-shoulder on me. Tonnes of business gets done in motels.

Shut the door. Attaboy.

So like I’s telling ya: it’s not about selling unparalleled home heating and ventilation products. It’s about overcomin the odds.

Lemme tell you a story about my path to Regional Sales Manager.

So at me old job and I’ve had a hissy fit and I’ve stormed out and I’ve chucked meself into this swamp at the bottom of the carpark, hoping to leave the world with one less useless insurance broker, then I’ve gone, hang on: why martyr myself when I can murder the root of all my problems?

So I’ve waddled back across the parking lot, leaving a brown trail, and I’ve gone straight to the boss’s office and you know what the cunt does? Gets his secretary to keep my dripping arse waiting til he’s back from lunch.

So while I’m waiting, I hear this voice from above, this angelic sorta humming.

I look up and there’s a HVHS Home Ventilation and Heating Solutions heat pump, and on the bottom I can see an 0800 number, and I’ve phoned it and said to the CEO: Ya can’t spell Heating Solutions without ‘solution,’ and I wanna be part of the solution.

So remember, you’re not just signing up to market a superior home heating and ventilation product to dopey fuckers on the end of a telephone for 45 hours a week—you’re overcoming the odds.

Use my pen if you want.

Attaboy.

Mmkay so Sunday October 30 at King’s Theatre Creative, Kawakawa, five Northland authors spoke about their recent books. You can peruse and maybe even buy the books with the handy links below.

Here’s the media release about the event…

31 October 2016

New Zealand Book Week celebrated in Northland

Northlanders were entertained and informed at an engaging and successful NZ Book Week event held at the Kings Theatre Creative in Kawakawa this week.

From an award-winning seminal history text, through to a novel based on an historical figure, a children’s book about a real kiwi, a fictional account of life in bicultural small town New Zealand, and a young adult novel with animal characters, the event showcased the breadth and depth of recent literature by Northlanders.

The event opened with a mihi from FNDC councillor and Ngati Hine member Willow-Jean Prime to welcome everyone, including keynote speaker Aroha Harris (Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi).

Dr Harris is a member of the Waitangi Tribunal and lecturer in history at The University of Auckland, and is the co-author with Atholl Anderson and the late Judith Binney of Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History, which won the illustrated non-fiction prize at this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

She told the story of early 20th century nursing pioneer Akenehi Hei of Te Whakatōhea, which brought alive the reality of nursing life for Māori women at that time, and provided an example of the fascinating stories her research for the book had uncovered.

Another woman from New Zealand history who featured was Charlotte Badger, an English convict who arrived in the Bay of Islands in 1806 aboard a ship she had helped to steal. Her story was fictionalised by Zana Bell in Forbidden Frontier. Narine Groome of Kamo talked about writing her children’s picture book, Whisker, the Kiwi Chick. Based on a true story, it recounts the narrow escape of a kiwi chick nearly crushed by a digger.

Bianca Staines of Kerikeri described how she got the idea for her young adult fiction title, The Tale of Prince, which tells the story of how pampered pedigree Prince’s life is turned upside down when a stray pooch arrives on the scene. She talked about her strategies of setting writing targets and how she encouraged herself to keep on meeting these.

Rae Roadley from the Kaipara, also gave writers encouragement as she described the ups and downs that led to her eventually publishing two books, one based on her life on a remote Kaipara Harbour peninsular, Love at the End of the Road, and the other an historical romance set in small town New Zealand, Have a Heart.

Luke Archbold of Whangarei won the draw for a copy of Tangata Whenua.

The event, organised by the Northland Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors was funded by Foundation North.

-Michael Botur.