Annual Pānui / Lecture

'Do you know you are all storytellers?' is a remark that prompts disbelief. Some are story writers. Every nation tells stories. From the beginning of time, humans have attempted to give structure and coherence to our jumbled life experiences by telling stories. 

Mona Williams' Pānui, Tell us a story out of your own mouth, traces Mona's own life as a storyteller, writer and reader. It is a deeply personal and passionate conversation about growing up in Guyana, exploring identity through storytelling, and the magic that occurs when children are taught that they, too, are storytellers. 

Mona's Pānui was delivered to a full auditorium and given a standing ovation on November 8, 6pm at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

Audio and video files of Mona's Pānui are forthcoming.

Marking the 50th birthday of the organisation, Dame Fiona Kidman’s Pānui, The heart of the matter, spans her own personal reading journey to her job as founding secretary of the then New Zealand Book Council, a career as a celebrated author, and her lifelong love of the written word.

The heart of the matter will take the listener on a journey from Dame Fiona’s childhood, where she learned to read in a Kawakawa hospital, to her instrumental and often hilarious accounts of early Book Council days, where she helped set up the programmes, like Writers in Schools, that continue to make their mark on the literary landscape of this country.

The heart of the matter is a celebration, a history lesson, and most of all, a passionate statement for the importance of reading and how it can transform our lives.

Dame Fiona Kidman is a fiction writer and poet whose first novel A Breed of Women was published in 1979. Since then she has published a wide range of novels, short story collections, poetry and memoir, often exploring women’s lives and themes of social justice.

In 1988 she was made an Officer, Order of the British Empire for services to literature, followed by a Dame Companion New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 1998.

The 2022 Pānui was held at the National Library auditorium on November 9. Read NZ Te Pou Muramura is grateful for the generous financial support of Luke Pierson in delivering this Pānui.

The life-changing power of reading and literature is explored in 2021's compelling Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Pānui.

Ōtaki playwright Renée (Ngāti Kahungunu) will deliver If you don’t get your head out of a book, my girl, you’ll end up on Queer Street.Born in 1929, Renée identifies as a ‘lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals.’ As a leading dramatist, poet and fiction writer, most of her writing is a direct expression of those convictions.

She is best known for her trilogy of plays, Wednesday to Come (1985), Pass it On (1986) and Jeannie Once (1991), which follow four generations of working-class New Zealand women.

In her Pānui, If you don’t get your head out of a book, my girl, you’ll end up on Queer Street, Renée will reflect on the books that shaped her, proving the transformational powers of reading. Books led Renée to discovering ‘Queer Street,’ a scene filled with community, education and action: 'On Queer Street, we had to struggle and march and smile and shout, we had to sit and talk and argue, we had to read and tell our stories, we had to write a new ending and we had to heal ourselves.’

In 2017, Renée received the Playmarket Award for significant contribution to New Zealand theatre, and in 2018 she was awarded the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.

The weight of words and the power of reading unheard voices is explored in our 2020 Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Pānui (formerly the Book Council Lecture). If Nobody Listens Then No One Will Know affirms the vital importance of writing, reading and knowing each other through our stories.

Lyttelton poet Ben Brown (Ngāti Māhuta, Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Pāoa) delivered our 2020 address, If Nobody Listens Then No One Will Know, exploring the complex concept of youth justice in Aotearoa.

In early 2020, Brown taught a writing workshop at Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo, the Oranga Tamariki Youth Justice Residence facility at Rolleston near Christchurch.

The workshop was part of Writers in Youth Justice, one of our Writers in Communities programmes that take place across the country in different iterations.This workshop resulted in an anthology of poetry by the YPs (Young People) who took part titled How the F** Did I Get Here, edited by Brown.

Copies of the anthology have been published for youth justice residents and Oranga Tamariki staff, and will soon be available to the public for purchase.

The 2020 Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Pānui was held at the National Library auditorium on November 18.

"... ask yourself, who is missing from the conversation? Who should be here, and isn't? Whose voice should be leading this discussion?"

Stories from the Wild: Reading and Writing in the Digital Age is a brave and personal charting of the current realities and possible futures of publishing, reading and writing. 

In her lecture, Lani addresses representation in literature, gatekeeping in the publishing industry and how emerging digital technologies are disrupting traditional publishing and offering new opportunities for both readers and writers, and, as always, she explores these topics with her distinctive honesty, humour and passion.