16th June, 2024
Anne-Marie Te Whiu is a Maori-Australian editor, weaver, writer, festival director and cultural producer. Her work is led by a deep sense of connection, to herself, her community and the places they inhabit.
“I am my community and my family – I am from these lands but also New Zealand,” Anne-Marie says. “My whakapapa belongs to the Te Rarawa iwi from Hokianga in Northland, Aotearoa New Zealand. I definitely do not call any specific place home. Home is here, at the moment. There’s always an ‘at the moment’.”
Anne-Marie lived in Port Kembla for three years, running writing programs and enjoying the beach.
“I cherish Port Kembla … especially The Servo and the beach. I have a very deep love of the Illawarra, the South Coast Writers Centre. Without them, I don’t think that the whole region would be as tight knit and well held as the literature community is.”
Anne-Marie says that, in her 20 years in the arts, all of her career highlights have been about human connections. “I try to connect people and bring people together. It’s in all of my projects, it was the anchor point for Woven.”
Woven, edited by Anne-Marie and published by Magabala Books, will feature at July’s South Coast Writers Festival.
“I was honoured to be able to facilitate international Indigenous poetic conversations that resulted in this incredible collection of work.”
Woven is a poetry anthology of 30 Indigenous voices from Australia and around the world. It is the culmination of a writing program named “Fair Trade” that Anne-Marie facilitated at Red Room Poetry, where she was cultural producer from 2019-2023. It also includes poetry by six First Nations writers Anne-Marie met while working at Qtopia Sydney and curating the First Nations Queer Languages exhibition.
Anne-Marie is now working on her own debut poetry collection, Mettle, set to be published by University of Queensland Press in February 2025.
“It’ll be my actual own words, for the first time.”
On Saturday, July 13, she will appear at the South Coast Writers Festival at Thirroul Community Centre, presenting ‘Yarning Poetry’ with Kirli Saunders and Judi Morrison. She will also feature in a poetry-reading showcase.
“I hope that they hear from me a different way to know what it means to be Maori-Australian, part of this diaspora, and I also really hope that people are motivated not only to read, but to buy the books, go to a library – literacy is power,” Anne-Marie says.
The 2024 South Coast Readers and Writers Festival will be held in Thirroul over the weekend of 13-14 July. Find out more on the website.
Woven is published by Magabala Books.
