Kāpiti Island’s Kaitiaki o Kāpiti Trust has announced writer Nuki Takao will be Kāpiti Island’s resident writer this year.
The ‘Tau mai e Kāpiti’ Māori Writers’ Residency 2010, funded by Te Waka Toi/Creative New Zealand and hosted by Kaitiaki o Kāpiti Trust,
offers a grant and allows an up-and-coming Māori writer to live and work on the northern end of Kāpiti island for eight weeks. This year the residency will run from 23 August to 17 October 2010.
Nuki Takao (Ngāti Rārua Turangapeke, Te Āti Awa Otaraua, Ngāi Tūhoe – Tamakaimoana) says living on Kāpiti will be like moving back through the mists of time.
“To reside on Kāpiti, on the island that stands apart from this world, will be more than a dream come true,” says Nuki. “To tread in the undisturbed footsteps of the old ones, to spend time with the ahi kā, with those few who have held unbroken the thread down through the generations, will be an honour.”
During the residency Nuki plans to work on a children’s book, in Māori and English, which she hopes to eventually develop into a series. She says the story will be an “historical, mythical,
magical story based around Kāpiti Island, its environs and its people. A hero’s tale with a child at its heart.”
The ‘Tau Mai e Kāpiti’ residency is open annually to authors from all genres writing in English and/or in Māori. John Barrett and whānau, who live on Kāpiti Island and run the Kāpiti Nature
Lodge, will be hosting Nuki during the eight week residency.
“We’re delighted to be sharing Matariki and Kāpiti with Nuki, our third resident writer,” he says.
“We’re very grateful to our supporters for seeing the residency through for another year. We’re very much hoping it will become an annual thing, as this is the only residency in the country created and run by Māori for Māori writers.”
