Archive for May, 2007

The School Journal centenary exhibition ‘A Nest of Singing Birds’ opened on 23 April at the National Library, and I was invited by the publisher, Learning Media, for a little look-see. An educational publishing institution, the School Journal is 100 this year. Anyone who’s spent time in an NZ primary school will remember their encounters with parts 1 to 4 of the journal. Youngsters today get print and CD-ROM versions, as well as audio CDs.

The journal provides a unique insight into our literary, art, social and cultural history. It has supported many of our artistic and literary greats - John Drawbridge, Margaret Mahey, James K Baxter and Colin McCahon, to name a few.

Gregory O’Brien, author of the book, commented that in the old stories, children are more likely to be off to the side, watching adults do things like ride tractors. Today, it’s different - kids are ‘at the centre of things’. Too right.

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Entries for the Pikihuia Awards for Maori writers of novels, short stories and film scripts close on 15 May. The Pikihuia Awards for Maori Writers is about encouraging diversity in writing and supporting innovation by recognising outstanding work by Maori writers.

Go to the website of Huia Publishers for the entry form and conditions of entry.

The categories are:

• Best short story written in Maori
• Best short story written in English
• Best novel extract written in English
• Best short film script written in English

As well as receiving cash prizes, selected winners and finalists will also be published in Huia Short Stories 7 - the contemporary Maori fiction series published by Huia Publishers.

Papers and notes from the Museums and the Web 2007 conference (April 11-14) in San Francisco are now online.

The wiki notes on the Walker Art Centre’s presentation on blogging are worth a read. They list ‘gems’ from the museum blogosphere for 06/07 (including this very blog!), blogs that have ‘found their voice’, tips for the perfect post, dos and don’ts for creating income from your blog, link-building strategies and - most usefully - simple statistics for assessing whether your blog is working.

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May is NZ Music Month. To celebrate, we’ve pulled out all the stops. We’ll feature over 400 music gigs on NZLive this month alone. Click here for the gig guide or type ‘gig’ into the ‘what’ search box on www.nzlive.com (try adding your town into the ‘where’ box to get a local listing).

We’ll be keeping it up, too, with gigs for June, July, August and on. If you promote gigs, email us and we’ll add your events.

And of course, get out there and enjoy some of New Zealand’s hottest acts!

It’s hard to believe that NZ Music Month turns seven this year. It’s done so much to showcase local acts and boost the visibility and success of New Zealand music.

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