The Pantograph Punch and Basement Theatre are pleased to invite submissions from individual writers to be part of New Volumes for 2018-19. Nau mai, haere mai!

WĀHI

The Pantograph Punch: Founded in 2011, The Pantograph Punch is an online arts and culture journal featuring thoughtful, unexpected and provocative longform writing. With a primary focus on nurturing emerging writers and editors in Aotearoa, the site has worked with a range of voices and runs workshops and events to support their development.

Basement Theatre: Described by Metro magazine as “the beating heart of Auckland Theatre,” Basement Theatre is a home to professional and budding theatre artists, comedians, dancers and musicians alike. Renowned for its ability to push the boundaries of artistic expression, Basement Theatre is Auckland’s culture-defining powerhouse: nurturing local live artistic voices, inspiring and challenging audiences and arts organisations, and reflecting diverse identities and experiences. The programme is made up of more than 80% New Zealand content, and more than 50% world premieres.

TE KAUPAPA

We all know the deal: it’s tough out there for writers, and even more impossible to survive as a critic, let alone start out as one. But without critical writing – writing that responds, interrogates, and examines our experiences with artists and their work – how do we debate and grow as a community? How do we have public conversations about how work can be better, and how can we share the multiplicity of responses that any single experience might have?

New Volumes will involve up to four writers being mentored as a group across a 12-month period (beginning August 2018), covering three to four Basement shows each throughout the year (primarily through critical writing, but with the opportunity to explore other forms like profiles or features). These pieces will go through a peer-editing process, and be accompanied by a series of workshops looking at a range of ideas, including form, structure, genre and the commercial reality of working as a writer.

New Volumes is all about giving emerging writers a chance to experiment with new ways of writing and responding to performance work – you don’t need to have had formal training, you just need to be interested in developing as a critical writer.

This initiative is available for up to four writers, who will receive editorial mentorship and publication support from The Pantograph Punch, as well as a writer’s fee for each published review.

PAEARU TUKU

To express your interest, download and fill out the application form (please note: to be eligible for this opportunity, you must be a New Zealand resident).

Send your submissions to [email protected] with the subject line: New Volumes 2018-19.

Submissions close on Friday 27 July, 2018 at 5pm.