Programme

2021 Programme

21/12/2020

Stories from Home

The 2021 samesame but different festival is a time for us to shake off the upheaval of 2020. We invite you to our queer literary home, to sit back and be entertained by some of the best LGBTQI voices today and to celebrate our community’s literary achievements. This year it is no surprise that we are reflecting on the idea of home, as it has been particularly important to us over the past year.
This year’s programme features many stories from home. We explore the notion of home in our opening gala, what it means for our LGBTQI communities and how it shapes us. Our panel ‘Queer Bodies’ applies the concept of home to our most intimate residence – our bodies; while our ‘Far from Home’ session features writers exploring concepts of identity when you are far from your homeland.
This is a year of firsts for us. We have a new residence: thanks to Proud Centres, we will be based in the Ellen Melville Centre. Also our festival now covers five days instead of the customary two. Most importantly, all our events this year are FREE.
For the first time, this year we are featuring an honoured writer posthumously. Ngaio Marsh has long been regarded as a ‘Crime Queen’, but her life was shrouded in mystery. Her award-winning biographer, Joanne Drayton, explores her life, her secrets and her impact on rainbow communities.
As ever, we are incredibly grateful for the generous support of our sponsors, especially Creative New Zealand, Foundation North and The Rule Foundation, as well as our wonderful patrons. Their contributions mean that we can all enjoy and celebrate the inspiring creativity within our LGBTQI communities.
Sam Orchard
Director

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2021 Performers

18/12/2020

Aroha Awarau is an acclaimed storyteller who has enjoyed success in three different writing disciplines – film scriptwriting, playwriting and journalism. His third play, Provocation, about the controversial gay panic defence, debuted during the 2020 Auckland Pride Festival. Aroha has a degree in film studies and his short films Puti and Clenched have both won awards. He has worked for the NZ Woman’s Weekly and Woman’s Day magazine, and was previously a producer/reporter for the current affairs show Native Affairs on Māori Television and a senior entertainment reporter for stuff.co.nz.

Jesse Bering is a research psychologist and Director of the Centre for Science Communication at the University of Otago. An award-winning science writer specialising in human behaviour, he has enjoyed international success with his books, including The Belief Instinct, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, Suicidal and Perv, a taboo-breaking work that received widespread critical acclaim and was named as a New York Times Editor’s Choice. All of his books have been translated into many different languages. As a practising science communicator, Jesse has written extensively for Scientific American, Playboy, The New York Times and others, and his work has also been featured in numerous documentaries, TV shows, and radio programmes.

Carole Beu is the owner of The Women's Bookshop in Ponsonby, a regular radio reviewer and event chair, and the presenter of the annual Ladies' Litera-Tea. She was a founding Trustee of the Auckland Writers Festival and in 2019 was awarded an MNZM for services to the literary industry.

Chris Brickell is Professor of Gender Studies at Otago University. He has published widely on the history and sociology of sexuality, with a particular focus on New Zealand's gay history. His award-winning book Mates and Lovers is the definitive history of male homosexuality in New Zealand, while his latest book, Queer Objects, which he co-edited, was published internationally. He is currently editing James Courage Diaries for publication in 2021, about one of New Zealand’s earliest gay authors.

Henrietta (Etta) Bollinger is a writer and disability rights advocate. Etta has had poems appear in Starling, Mimicry and Scum magazines and plays staged in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. Etta lives with two other advocates and one sympathetic cat. Etta is currently writing a first book of prose about life as a disabled person, with the assistance of Creative New Zealand funding.

Brent Coutts is an historian and poet. His latest book, Crossing the Lines: The story of three homosexual New Zealand soldiers in World War II, has been enthusiastically received, while an earlier book Protest in New Zealand includes a chapter on the advancement of LGBTQ civil rights in New Zealand. In 2017 he published Re-Reading the Rainbow, a history of LGBTQ artists in New Zealand 1968-1995. Brent has written a number of queer art books, published several volumes of poetry and also collaborated with other queer artists, poets and composers.

Joanne Drayton is an acclaimed New York Times bestselling author who has published six books, including Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime and biographies of Anne Perry and Frances Hodgkins. In 2007, she was awarded a National Library Fellowship; and in 2017, the prestigious Logan Fellowship at the Carey Institute in upstate New York. In 2019, her book Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love was the winner of the coveted Royal Society Te Aparangi Award for General Non-fiction at the NZ Book Awards.

Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa) grew up in Whanganui and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is a renowned community activist and organiser working in the areas of youth, takatāpui, anti-racism, workers rights and housing. She is a former youth worker who supported LGBTQI young people and serves on the Tīwhanawhana Trust, a takatāpui community group. Kassie has written essays for The Spinoff, Pantograph Punch and Vice on gender diversity, whakamā, and being queer and Māori. This year she edited/organised The Aunties Magazine, a one-off magazine about political organising in Aotearoa.

Elizabeth Heritage is a Pākehā freelancer in te ao pukapuka (the NZ book trade / publishing industry / literary circles / media) helping kaituhi (writers) get published. She identifies as bisexual and whaikaha (disabled). Elizabeth is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and online at http://elizabethheritage.nz/ where she writes extensively about her kiore mōkai (pet rats).

Marolyn Krasner was born in downtown Los Angeles in 1974 and has lived in New Zealand since 2004. Her queer-focused stories, which have been published in several anthologies, are strategically crafted to make you laugh, or not. Her novel The Radicals, about a feminist activist who is on probation for assaulting homophobes, was published in 2020. Marolyn lives in the Manawatu with her wife Ruth, two children and a small dog.

Born in the UK, bred in Aotearoa, Ahilan Karunaharan is a writer, actor, director and producer of Srilankan Tamil descent. From intimate encounters to large-scale epics, pioneering works for the South Asian community, international arts festivals, immersive participatory installations and musicals, Karunaharan has been involved in shows, productions and festivals both nationally and internationally. His plays include The Mourning After, Tea and My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak. In 2018 Ahi won The Bruce Mason Playwright Award, recognising his work as an outstanding New Zealand playwright.

Cole Meyers is an educator and activist. He works as a consultant on trans and gender diverse narratives and inclusion in film, television, web series and theatre, including at Shortland Street, where he is currently a dialogue writer and previously a story-liner. He has been on the board of samesame but different and Breaking Boundaries, where he has run workshops on writing, performance and art, and an organiser and script selector for Legacy Project. He also works with InsideOUT, including as a writing and performance teacher, and has worked with RainbowYOUTH. Cole was the writer and co-showrunner for the recent critically acclaimed Rūrangi series.

Rhion Munro works in community service design and is passionate about connecting communities with learning and literacy services. He likes to read (everything), dance, make music, smash the patriarchy, write poetry, hike and travel to distant and not so distant places. Rhi is a qualified librarian and is studying a postgraduate diploma in public health. He is a proud non-binary person who uses he/they pronouns.

Jackson Nieuwland is a genderqueer writer, publisher and bookseller. They are the author of I Am A Human Being(Compound Press 2020) as well as two collaborative chapbooks with Carolyn DeCarlo. They are a co-founder of Food Court, a reading/zine series and independent bookshop in Wellington.

Lil O’Brien is a freelance copywriter and first-time author who has been described by numerous friends as 'the gayest person I know'. She's written for a number of publications about queer topics and more, and spent two years telling her coming-out story around New Zealand as a part of RainbowYOUTH's high-school education programme, which inspired her to write her best-selling 2020 memoir, Not That I'd Kiss a Girl. Lil loves to read, talk far too much about lesbian pop culture and ride a motorbike around town, just to make sure she is hitting peak gayness at all times possible.

George Parker researches, writes and educates on bodies, fatness, health, gender and justice. They are passionate about finding pathways to peaceful embodiment that resist norms and celebrate difference. They are a big fan of the samesame but different festival and are very pleased to take part in this year’s festival.

Jennifer Palgrave (aka Lois Cox and Hilary Lapsley) are both experienced writers with publications to their names as well as editing experience. The One That Got Away, a lesbian mystery under the pseudonym Jennifer Palgrave, is their first collaboration and first venture into writing fiction. Lois’s career began in publishing before becoming a senior public servant. Her life experience includes time as a student at Cambridge University and a campaign as a political candidate, running for parliament in the Lange era – both experiences relevant to aspects of The One That Got Away. She edited, with Harvey McQueen, Ten Modern New Zealand Poets, a widely used anthology of New Zealand poetry and she conducted an oral history project on the lives of older lesbians. Hilary’s background is as a social scientist and academic. She has taught lesbian studies as well as having many academic articles and reports to her name, as well as the biography Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women.

Victor Rodger is a critically acclaimed playwright of Samoan and Scottish descent. His work often deals with issues of sexuality, race and identity, and has been praised for its boldness, candour and freshness. Since his first award-winning play, Sons, was produced in 1995, he has written eight plays, including Black Faggot, My Name is Gary Newmanand Club Paradiso. A collection of his work was published by Victoria University Press in 2017, while his personal essay, Voyage Round My Father, was published in The Best of E-Tangata the same year. Victor has also written extensively for television, as well as children’s stories for Radio New Zealand.

Jen Shieff’s crime fiction is set in historic Auckland, in and around an infamous brothel, loosely based on Flora MacKenzie’s house of ill repute in Ring Terrace, St Mary’s Bay. The Gentlemen’s Club (2015) and its stand-alone sequel The Vanishing Act (2018) went straight to the Nielsen Indie Top 20 and Weekly Bestseller lists, before being shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Awards. The Ties That Bind, Jen’s third book, is another crossover historic / lesbian / crime novel, due to be published later in 2021. Jen writes from her home in Turangi. Previously she taught English literature at high school, owned and managed a business and taught management at Auckland University of Technology.

Young Alumna of the Year (UoA) Courtney Sina Meredith, is a distinguished author whose work delves into issues such as racism, sexism and poverty and draws on her Samoan roots. She is the Director of Tautai, Aotearoa’s leading Pacific arts organisation.
Courtney has been awarded prestigious creative opportunities around the globe. Heralding an era of niu leadership, she has a strong focus on giving voice to the contemporary experiences of Pacific women. She lives in Aukliani with visual artist partner Janet Lilo and their children.

Ramon Te Wake (Te Rarawa) is a Webfest NZ nominated director and producer (2018, 2019) for Attitude’s Glimpse and Crips in Cars. She is one of the first trans women to present, direct and produce content in Aotearoa. With more than 17 years in the film and TV industry, Ramon has created hundreds of stories with a strong focus on Māori, queer and the marginalised as the backbone to her extensive and prolific catalogue. In 2020, Ramon appeared in New Zealand’s first trans drama Rūrangi as Ellie. Her most recent work is the much-anticipated graphic novella Ahō Wāhine, in which she reinterprets four Māori stories, Papatūānuku, Hineahuone, Hinenuitepō and Mahuika.

Ian Watt is a retired publisher and editor. Born in New Zealand, he worked for several years in the UK before returning home to publish groundbreaking gay fiction by Peter Wells, Witi Ihimaera and Robert Leek in the 1990s. He has been on the board of ssbd since its inception and organises the annual Peter Wells Short Fiction Contest. Having edited the work of many other writers, he is now doing some writing of his own.

M. Darusha Wehm is the Nebula Award-nominated and Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning author of the interactive fiction game The Martian Job and the science fiction novels Beautiful Red, Children of Arkadia, The Voyage of the White Cloudand the Andersson Dexter cyberpunk detective series. Their mainstream books include the Devi Jones’ Locker YA series and the humorous coming-of-age novel The Home for Wayward Parrots. Darusha’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in many places, including Terraform and Nature. Originally from Canada, Darusha now lives in Wellington.

Elyssia Wilson-Heti is an interdisciplinary artist, activist and member of FAFSWAG. She is of mixed Niuean and European heritage. Elyssia is producer for the FAFSWAG Arts Collective, having produced live performances, community events, arts panels and activations over the past five years. She has featured in works for the Auckland Fringe festival and Auckland Pride. Her arts / community practice is collaborative and intersectional, and she has been an active member of the collective action group Oceania Interrupted. In 2019 Elyssia was a judge for the best of Auckland Fringe and selected for the Basement Theatre development programme, 'The Visions Project'. She was the producer in residence at the Basement theatre for 2020 and, with the other members of FAFSWAG, a recipient of an Arts Laureate last year.

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Two to the Power of Five: Programme

10/7/2020

QUEER WRITING NOW

Friday July 24th, 7pm QUEER WRITING NOW: How do we understand what queer writing is now? And is that kind of understanding even possible? Incredibly talented poets Chris TSE and Emma BARNES are trying to answer those questions in their roles as editors of an upcoming anthology of queer writing from Aotearoa. They will be chatting with Chris BRICKELL about their collaboration, and the uplifting and (sometimes) arduous process of selecting the work of New Zealand queer writers for this eagerly anticipated collection.

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MEDIA MATTERS:

Saturday 25th July, 11am MEDIA MATTERS: It's a time of unprecedented upheaval in media. Business models are broken, but old certainties are also being overturned. Sometimes it seems like there is more space to tell LGBTQI+ stories than there ever has been. So how do we tell our stories in this tumultuous age? How can queer voices and issues be better represented in mainstream media? Join journalists Alison MAU (Stuff) and Felix DESMARAIS (Rotorua Daily Post/NZME) as they talk to former Paperboy editor Jeremy HANSEN about the highs and lows of their careers, the tales they most want to see told, and how their own experiences shape the stories they tell.

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WRITING WORKSHOP

Saturday 25th July, 2pm WRITING WORKSHOP: It’s not often you have writers with such substantial experience on hand to share the secrets of their craft. Join us as two writing veterans illuminate their approach, philosophy and practice, and share ideas for you to apply to your own work. So get your pens or keyboards at the ready for an interactive writing workshop with renowned author Renee, (Ngati Kahungungu/Scots) and acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer Joanne DRAYTON. They will be hosted by Gina COLE, an award-winning poet and fiction writer.

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POETRY IN MOTION:

Sunday 26th July, 11am POETRY IN MOTION: The boundaries of poetry are constantly being tested and broken, as new generations of writers unearth undiscovered creative potential in the form. In this talk, two powerhouse poets discuss the breaking of boundaries and gender binaries in their work. Join Ockhams 2020 poetry finalist essa may RANAPIRI and international guest and poet Eileen MYLES in this don’t-miss discussion of personality and poetry with author Tulia THOMPSON.

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THE LIBERATION AND RISKS OF WRITING A MEMOIR:

Sunday 26th July, 2pm THE LIBERATION AND RISKS OF WRITING A MEMOIR: How do LGBTQI+ people tell their stories? Is it possible to give an honest account of your personal history without alienating important people in your life? And in the absence of an abundance of queer voices, what responsibility does a writer hold for telling a story that also feels right and rings true to their communities? In this talk, first-time author Lil O’BRIEN - whose memoir Not That I’d Kiss a Girl was released in June 2020 - and our international guest, Australian author Nevo ZISIN, whose memoir Finding Nevo addressed gender transition, talk to Sam ORCHARD about their approaches to writing honestly and sensitively, and reaching for the truth.

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Two to the Power of Five:

10/7/2020

Aotearoa’s only LGBTQI+ literary festival, Same Same but Different, is excited to announce a special online winter talk series later this month.

From July 24-26th, Two to the Power of Five: The Power of Queer Words pairs up fascinating queer writers for five fantastic online conversations. The sessions are all free and being held thanks to the support of Creative NZ.

The lineup of talent includes international guests Eileen Myles and Nevo Zisin, as well as an amazing lineup of Aotearoa’s top LGBTQI+ writing talent.

“Same Same But Different is held every February during Auckland’s Pride Festival, but the Covid-19 lockdown got us thinking about brightening up the middle of the year with some stimulating conversations between queer writers,” says Same Same But Different’s Simie Simpson. “Two to the Power of Five is an exciting event for us, because it gives us the chance us to invite more people to be inspired by the creativity of the writers we’re showcasing.”

“We thought really hard about how to set up a programme that people can enjoy in their PJs, with a cuppa from the comfort of their living rooms,” says Sam Orchard, Same Same But Different’s Creative Director. “We’ll record the sessions so people can watch them again whenever they feel like it - as well as entertaining and stimulating people on the day, we’re establishing what we know will be a great future resource for queer writers from all over Aotearoa.”

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2020 Programme

26/11/2019

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This is our first year without our beloved Peter Wells, and it is with him in mind that we have crafted this programme. He established the samesame but different festival five short years ago to celebrate the voices of existing and emerging LGBTQI writers in Aotearoa, and to create a space with a little bit of magic. His passion, his vision and his warmth are missed by us all.
Peter helped to reshape how New Zealanders saw sexuality and he created new ways for us to see ourselves. He had an incredible ability to make space to laugh at the absurdity of humanity and to insist that we do better. Peter had an insatiable drive to write, to find a way to precisely express the worlds he occupied. Written and spoken language were his weapon – choosing his words carefully and deliberately and using them like a blade, slicing to reveal something deeper within us or something hidden away within our collective consciousness.
The writers in this year’s festival echo some of these qualities. We are showcasing writers who push boundaries, explore new territories and create queer and fantastical worlds. Their literary orbit includes fantasy, science fiction, sex, romance and robots. They even traverse those weird and terrifying realms from childhood to adolescence. Ranging from acclaimed New Zealand playwright Victor Rodger to Australian writer Kelly Gardiner, our programme for 2020 celebrates the writers who are unafraid to change the literary landscape and boldly go where no Queer has gone before.
Sam Orchard
Festival Director

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2020 Festival Performers

26/11/2019

Buy tickets for the 2020 festival

Gina Cole (fiction writer, from Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, New Zealand) is of Fijian, Scottish, and Welsh descent. She is the author of Black Ice Matter, which won Best First Book of Fiction at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and the winner of the 2014 Auckland Pride Festival’s creative writing competition. Cole’s work has been widely anthologized and she is a past participant in the Auckland Writers Festival, and the Same Same But Different Festival. She is an honorary fellow in writing at the University of Iowa and was 2018 Writer in Residence at the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. She is currently a Phd candidate in creative writing at Massey University, School of English, researching Indigenous science fiction.

Joanne Drayton is an acclaimed NewZealand author whose output is globally recognised. Her most recent book Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love was the winner of the non-fiction prize at the 2019 Ockham NZ Book Awards. Her other books include biographies of Anne Perry, Frances Hodgkins, Rhona Haszard, Edith Collier and Ngaio Marsh.

Michael Earp is the editor of Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories and contributor to Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories. He has a teaching degree and a Masters in children’s literature and has worked between bookselling and publishing for over seventeen years as a children’s literature specialist, currently at The Little Bookroom in Melbourne. His writing has appeared in The Victorian Writer and Aurealis.

Kelly Gardiner’s latest series is the time-slip trilogy for kids, The Firewatcher Chronicles. Her previous novel, 1917: Australia’s Great War, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Young People’s History Prize and the Asher Award. Kelly’s other books include the young adult novels Act of Faith and The Sultan’s Eyes, both of which were shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and CBCA Notable Books; the Swashbuckler pirate trilogy; and Goddess, a novel for adults based on the life of the seventeenth century French swordswoman, crossdresser and opera singer, Julie d’Aubigny. Kelly worked for many years in queer media and now teaches creative writing at La Trobe University.

Jeremy Hansen is an Auckland-based journalist and editor. He had edited the magazines HOME and Paperboy, co-wrote the book Villa: From Heritage to Contemporary (Godwit, 2009) with Patrick Reynolds and Jeremy Salmond, and edited Modern: New Zealand Houses from 1939-1977 (Godwit 2013).

Mark Henrickson (he/him) is Professor of Social Work at Massey University, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand where he has been since 2003. He worked for many years in HIV-related health and mental health care before coming into the academic sector. He has published on HIV prevention, care delivery, and programme design and evaluation. Mark was the project leader on Lavender Islands: Portrait of the Whole Family (2004), He has published extensively on gender and sexually diverse populations and led the AfricaNZ Health study on Black African new settlers in Aotearoa New Zealand (2012-13). His recent major publications include the edited book Getting to Zero: Global Social Work Responds to HIV (available free to download on the UNAIDS website) released in 2017, and a co-authored book Vulnerability and Marginality in Human Services (with Christa Fouché; Routledge, also in 2017). His current funded research explores the ethics of intimacy and sexuality in residential aged care. Mark is a registered social worker in New Zealand.

Joshua Iosefo is of Samoan and Niuean descent and is born and raised in South Auckland. He has a passion for raising mental health awareness within Pasifika families, storytelling and equity in education. He is currently doing his Masters in Philosophy of Communication Studies at AUT and serves within the mental health and education sector. He is the founder of 'Odd Family' a collective who create and perform stories to encourage Pasifika families to talk openly about mental health.

Nathan Joe is a Chinese-Kiwi playwright who often deals with issues of racial or sexual identity through a postmodern lens. He is a graduate of the New Zealand Broadcasting School (2011) with a Bachelor in Broadcasting Communications (Digital Film and Television Production). He won the Playmarket b425 award two years in a row and has been shortlisted for the ADAM NZ award. He also scooped up two awards during Auckland Fringe (2019). His most recent plays include: I am Rachel Chu and Scenes from a Yellow Peril (to be staged in 2020).

Moe Laga is a Performance Artist from South Auckland. Her practice includes movement and activation and a large number of stage and screen productions, as well as collaborative visual arts work that has been shown in Australia and at the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China.

Kyle Mewburn is one of New Zealand's most eclectic and prolific writers. From multi-layered picture books to laugh-out-loud junior fiction series, her titles have been translated into a dozen languages and won numerous awards including Children's Book of the Year. She was Children's Writer-in-Residence at Otago University in 2011 and President of the New Zealand Society of Authors from 2013-2017. Originally from Brisbane, Kyle lives with her wife, Marion, two cats and 24 chickens, in a house with a grass roof near the sleepy village of Millers Flat. When she's not writing she's either searching for hidden eggs or exploring the exciting world she discovered in her closet.

Joni Nelson is a writer, organiser and candle-maker based in Tāmaki Makaurau. A creative all-rounder, she has been a producer, performer, poet, director, and then some. Joni has spent the last four years making space for other people, as co-founder of queer & trans creative arts organisation, Breaking Boundaries which she left behind in March 2019 to focus on her own creative pursuits. Her first play 8 Reasonable Demands was commissioned and performed by Auckland Theatre Company as part of HERE&NOW Festival and shortlisted as part of Playmarket’s b425 Awards 2019.

Sam Orchard’s ongoing web comic Rooster Tails has been running for 11years and is the only comic of its kind in Aotearoa. Written from his life as a queer transgender man, the comic explores themes of mental health, fat embodiment, nerd culture and trans identity. Sam is also the author of Family Portraits, a series of short comic stories of intersectional identities within Aotearoa's rainbow communities. He is currently working on a young adult fiction graphic novel.

A secondary school teacher by training, Charmaine Pountney has worked in many areas of the education system, with students, teachers and parents. As an out lesbian since meeting her longtime partner, Tanya Cumberland in 1985, she has been a strong supporter of Maori sovereignty and of women's issues. Her book, Learning Our Living, is a story of her first hand experiences of education - in homes, kindergartens, schools, teachers colleges, universities, polytechnics and on marae, farms and the internet.

essa may ranapiri (Ngāti Raukawa | takatāpui they/them/theirs) is a poet from Kirikiriroa, Aotearoa. They are part of the local writing group Puku.riri|Liv.id. They are a graduate of the IIML’s 2017 Masters in Creative Writing course. They are a firm believer in collaboration and have produced multiple zines with other artists and writers. Their first collection of poems comes out in July 2019 from VUP titled ransack.

Victor Rodger is a critically acclaimed playwright of Samoan and Scottish descent. His work often deals with issues of sexuality, race and identity, and has been praised for its boldness, candour and freshness. Since his first award-winning play, Sons, was produced in 1995, he has written eight plays, including Black Faggot, My Name is Gary Newman and Club Paradiso. A collection of his work was published by Victoria University Press in 2017, while his personal essay, ‘Voyage Round My Father’, was published in The Best of E-Tangata the same year. Victor has also written extensively for television, as well as children’s stories for Radio New Zealand.

Simie Simpson (Te Ati Awa) is interested in spaces that allow people and books to connect. She believes in the transformative power of books and the importance of seeing yourself reflected in the books you read. Simie has many years of working in the book trade, cutting her teeth as a bookseller at Unity Books, and working as a rep and then NZ sales manager for Walker Books. Currently she is enjoying the role of librarian in the beautiful Kaipara and reviewing books for Magpies, Sapling, and the Paparoa Press. Simie was a judge for the NZ Children Book Awards in 2019 and the NZ Booksellers Industry Awards 2019.

Caitlin Spice is the author of The Silver Path, a collection of short modern dark fantasy tales in the style of The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Her short stories have been adapted by the NoSleep Podcast after gaining a following on Reddit. Caitlin is also the co-author of recently-funded transgender fairy tale Raven Wild, which was co-written with Adam Reynolds and Chaz Harris and due for release in June 2020.

My name is Samuel Te Kani and I am a Maori and New Zealand European homo hailing from Northland, belonging to iwis Nga Puhi Tainui and Ngati Porou. My interest has generally orbited science fiction and fantasy from a very young age, mostly through compulsive consumption of film and television. Growing up poor meant going to the library was one of the few leisure activities my family could actually afford, out of which came a still deeply entrenched book lust that has only served to pique my initial romances with wildly escapist genres; only now I see them for being succinct laboratories in which the variables of potential futures are drawn, as opposed to mere entertainment.

Melody Thomas is a sometime-presenter and producer for Music 101, and writer for various print and online media.
A graduate of the New Zealand Broadcasting School, Melody was once advised to 'channel her creativity into ad writing'. Ever contrary, she decided to find a place where she would never have to write, listen to or think about an ad for the rest of her broadcasting life. Melody is the creator of award-winning sex and sexuality podcast BANG! a frank (but often entertaining) exploration of sex, sexuality and relationships using real stories told by real people.

Julie Watson is in her fifth year of being the programme director for Samesame but different. She is an educator, facilitator and advocate. After two decades of working with the Human Rights Commission, she is now programme lead for Silver Rainbow, a facilitator with Rainbow Tick and does education and consultancy around relationship and LGBTQI issues. Julie is part of the Rainbow Panel Advisory group to Auckland City Council and is also the artistic director for Auckland Playback Theatre.

Jem Yoshioka is an illustrator and comic artist living in Wellington, New Zealand. Deftly weaving words and pictures together, Jem’s comics tell evocative and emotional stories with themes of belonging, place, and heritage. Jem’s current webcomic project is a queer science fiction romance between an android and a human called Circuits and Veins, which has been running for two years and has over 67,000 subscribers.
Jem has been published in Electrum - an all-ages mixed race anthology, The School Journal, Three Words - the New Zealand Women’s comics anthology, and Geometry literary journal among others. Her comic Concrete was published by Square Planet Comics and she self-published Sunshine in 2015. She won first place in the Chromacon New Zealand Indie Arts Festival Comic Awards in 2013 and 2015 and was shortlisted in 2017.

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Thank You Peter

19/2/2019

5 years ago Peter had a dream that same same but different could be New Zealand's own LGBTQI literary Festival. His enthusiasm has enabled us to deliver four amazing festivals since then sharing queer stories on a queer stage.

On the 18th of February 2019 his time came to an end. Thank you Peter for making so many things possible for so many people and also knowing when to be both carefully polite and also when to fight for what is right.

2019 Programme

6/12/2018

This is our fourth samesame but different Writers Festival . We’re growing up and growing out. This year, we have events at both the Auckland Art Gallery and the Basement Theatre, as well as our home nest at AUT University. We encompass a queer film screening and the only LGBTQI writing contest in Aotearoa (with increased prize money, thanks to the generosity of the Wallace Arts Foundation). One of the pleasing aspects of the festival is the number of younger writers coming through, as seen in the ‘Break-out new talent’ session.

We are the only LGBTQI writers festival in Aotearoa and it feels great that we have three warmly received and successful festivals behind us and that we’re keeping on keeping on growing. This is our kōrero, our five-day writing marae, our magic space wherein we become the centre of the world for a few days – so take advantage of it. We only survive through you buying tickets and persuading your friends to come along. We exist for you, but we can only continue if you gift us your strength and your aroha and your presence.

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2019 Festival Performers

4/12/2018

Buy Tickets for the 2019 Festival

Georgina Beyer was the first trans MP in the world. She has been a prostitute, an entertainer, a mayor and an MP. She told her story in the book Change for the Better with Cathy Casey in 1999. Her maiden speech in 2000 was widely televised and she became the subject of an award-winning documentary, ‘Georgie Girl’, co-directed by Annie Goldson and Peter Wells. In 2018 Georgina, an inspirational speaker, was invited to speak at the Oxford University Union as well as at Cambridge University.

Ron Brownson is Senior Curator New Zealand and Pacific Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. He has worked long-term as a professional curator and is an expert on New Zealand and Pacific art with a particular interest in photography. He has initiated many exhibition and publication projects and is a trustee of the Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust. His books include John Kinder’s New Zealandand Art Toi: New Zealand art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, one of the most comprehensive profiles of local art yet published.

Natasha Dennerstein was born to a family originating in Belarus. She worked as a psychiatric nurse for many years, which gave her an interesting perspective on the human condition. Natasha studied creative writing at Whitireia Polytechnic in New Zealand and went on to take her Masters in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University. She also has an MFA from San Francisco State University. Natasha is interested in the things that humans have in common rather than the things that separate them. She is writing towards figuring out what it means to be a human being.

Joanne Drayton is an acclaimed New Zealand author whose output is globally recognised as being of the highest calibre. Her book The Search for Anne Perry was numbered in the top 10 non-fiction books on the New York Timesbestseller list in 2015 and was a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards in 2013. She has written biographies of Frances Hodgkins, Rhona Haszard, Edith Collier and Ngaio Marsh, while her latest book, Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love is enjoying huge acclaim. She has also curated exhibitions and publishes in art history and theory. In 2007, she was awarded a National Library Fellowship, and in 2017 a prestigious Logan Fellowship at the Carey Institute in upstate New York.

Chelsey Furedi is a writer, artist and animator. She graduated from Animation College with a Diploma in Applied Animation in 2015 and a Diploma in Digital Media in 2016. She has worked as an in-house animator for several companies, and has self-published the webcomic series Rock and Riot, a queer 1950s story about teenage rebels. She is now working on Project Nought, a queer sci-fi webcomic about a time-travel exchange program.

Jared Gulian’s olive-farming memoir, Moon over Martinborough, became a New Zealand bestseller in 2013 and was serialised by Radio NZ. Based on his award-winning blog, it tells the comic tale of how he and his partner, both American city boys, became olive farmers in the Wairarapa. In 2018, Jared successfully self-published an international edition of the book under the new title An Olive Grove at the Edge of the World. Jared also writes gay fiction under the pen-name Ty Jacob. His self-published gay novel, The End of Billy Knightbecame a runaway bestseller in-store at Sydney’s Darlinghurst Bookshop in 2017. He lives in the Wairarapa with his partner, some chooks and a few pet pigs.

Mika Haka is a rare commodity – a truly original New Zealand Māori artist and entertainer with three decades of eye-poppingly innovative work spanning stage, film, television, fashion and music. He has toured his critically acclaimed live shows to seven Edinburgh Festivals, has recorded seven albums in te reo Māori and English, and penned the world’s first ever gay haka, Tēnei Tōku Ure (This is my penis).He has also appeared in more than twenty TV series, specials and films. He has given back by educating and inspiring new generations of Māori and Pacific artists and performers, while he is also kaitiaki of the Mika Haka Foundation, a charity organisation committed to keeping young New Zealanders active and healthy through physical culture and the performing arts. He has told his life story to Sharon Mazer in I have loved me a Man, recently published by Auckland University Press.

Sandi Hall is a manuhiri writer mostly published in other countries, and is proud that four of her books, including her light-hearted Paekakariki lesbian novels, are offered by the NZ Library Service. The first of her seven novels was published by Britain’s The Women’s Press and translated into German and Danish, with a later slip edition in the Canada & USA. As Chair of the Auckland Branch NZSA, in 2014 she persuaded the Branch to offer a cash incentive for a Queer Writing Competition for Auckland Pride, negotiating with express to publish the winners. Sandi also writes plays, four of which have been staged. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage, she has, with whanau approval and assistance, written a play about the nineteenth century Māori feminist Meri Te Tai Mangakahia.

Jeremy Hansen is an Auckland-based writer and journalist. He is the co-author of Villa: From Heritage to Contemporary(Godwit, 2009) and the editor of the book Modern: New Zealand Homes from 1936 to 1977(Godwit, 2013). He edited the architecture and design magazine HOMEfrom 2005-16, which won Magazine of the Year at the Canon Media Awards in 2016, and the free Auckland weekly Paperboy. He has written for publications including Metro,The Listener, North & South, Architectural Record and Dwell.

David Herkt is a writer and award-winning television director. He has published memoirs, short stories, poetry and arts journalism, and his feature-length interviews and book reviews regularly appear in print.

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is one of New Zealand’s best-known commentators and writers on New Zealand’s design history and has been described by Wallpaper magazine as ‘one of the most influential design writers in the Southern Hemisphere’. His landmark book At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design was the Montana Book Awards Non-Fiction Winner in 2004, and The Dress Circle: New Zealand Fashion Design since 1940, which he co-authored with Lucy Hammonds and Claire Regnault, was shortlisted for the same prize in 2011. Other books he has written include 40 Legends of New Zealand Design and New Dreamland. In 2008 Douglas was honoured with a MNZM for his contribution to architecture and design, and in 2009 the New Zealand Institute of Architects awarded him the President’s Award for his contribution to architecture.

Katie O’Neill is a graphic novelist, who has created several works with the Portland-based publisher Oni Press that have resonated throughout the world. Her books are aimed at intermediate-level readers, with strong LGBT characters and themes of self-love, kindness and mindfulness. Her first book, Princess Princess Ever After, received a starred review from Kirkus, was featured on the 2017 ALA Rainbow Book List Top Ten and nominated for a Sakura Medal in 2018. Her next book, The Tea Dragon Society, was the winner of two Eisner Awards in 2018 for best publication for kids and for best webcomic. It was also selected for the 2018 ALA Rainbow List, won the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids Comics, was chosen as one of Amazon.com’s Best Comics & Graphic Novels for 2017, and featured in the 2017 School Library Journal's Top 10 Graphic Novels. Her third book, Aquicorn Cove, published in October 2018, has also received warm reviews.

Sam Orchard is committed to building a world where our many differences and complexities are celebrated. His ongoing web comic Rooster Tails has been running for nine years and is the only comic of its kind in Aotearoa. Written from his life as a queer transgender man, the comic explores themes of mental health, fat embodiment, nerd culture and trans identity. Sam is also the author of Family Portraits, a series of short comic stories that amplify the stories of intersectional identities within Aotearoa’s rainbow communities. Sam’s recent activism projects include ‘We Are Beneficiaries’ and ‘Out Loud Aotearoa’. As part of these he engaged other artists and writers to drive social change in New Zealand, gaining international attention across social media, amplifying viewpoints which are often missing from public discourse.

Ruby Porter is a prose writer, poet and artist. She tutors creative writing at the University of Auckland, and also in high schools. Ruby has been published in Geometry Journal, Argos, Aotearotica, The Spinoff and The Wireless, and a selection of her poetry is available on NZEPC as part of Six Pack Sounds. She was the winner of the Wallace Foundation Short Fiction Award in 2017 with her short story, ‘A Word for Blue’, and the inaugural winner of the Michael Gifkins Prize in 2018 with her debut novel, Attraction, which was written during her Masters of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. It will be published in 2019 by Melbourne-based Text Publishing.

Victor Rodger is a critically acclaimed playwright of Samoan and Scottish descent. His work often deals with issues of sexuality, race and identity, and has been praised for its boldness, candour and freshness. Since his first award-winning play, Sons, was produced in 1995, he has written eight plays, including Black Faggot, My Name is Gary Newmanand Club Paradiso.A collection of his work was published by Victoria University Press in 2017, while his personal essay, ‘Voyage Round My Father’, was published in The Best of E-Tangatathe same year. Victor has also written extensively for television, as well as children’s stories for Radio New Zealand.

Andrew Rumbles has worked in the sales departments of major publishing houses and has also managed his own bookshops. In conjunction with his Ponsonby Dymocks store Andrew wrote book reviews for express. He writes a little poetry and when he isn’t reading a book can be found working in real estate.He is the chair of the organising committee for samesame but different.

Nicholas Sheppard grew up in the rural South Island, then moved to Auckland. He has worked as a freelance journalist for local newspapers such as The Herald and The Dominion Post, and magazines such as Remix; and has written for prominent American news and cultural websites, such as The Federalist, Huffington Post, Politico and The Daily Beast. He has taught at a private music school, and currently teaches English. Broken Play is his debut novel.

Robert Tennent During his childhood Robert called many different countries home: Cambodia, St Lucia, Papua New Guinea and a few other short-term locations. He went to boarding school in New Zealand when he was thirteen. A year before graduating, he was raped by someone known to him. After this incident he chose to be celibate for a period of time, to look after himself and accept what had happened. When he was ready to have sex again, he took a photo of his first partner and continued to do this with other men he hooked up with. He has now published these images with poems in a book called Come Back To Bed, which revolves around the rediscovery and exploration of sex after a sexual assault.

Chris Tse is a writer based in Wellington whose poetry has drawn acclaim for its ‘emotive power’ and being ‘utterly exposing, playful, inventive and daring’. He studied film and English literature at Victoria University of Wellington, where he also completed an MA in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. He is the author of two poetry collections published by Auckland University Press: How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of the Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry and a finalist at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) and HE’S SO MASC, which was published in March 2018. Chris is also an occasional food blogger, musician and actor.

Julie Watson is an educator, facilitator and advocate. After two decades of working with the Human Rights Commission, she is now programme lead for Silver Rainbow, a facilitator with Rainbow Tick and does education and consultancy around relationship and LGBTQI issues. Julie is part of the Rainbow Panel Advisory group to Auckland City Council and is in her fourth year as the programme director for samesame but different.She is also the artistic director for Auckland Playback Theatre and an independent advocate for students at Unitec.

Brendaniel Weir was born in Auckland and took part in Homosexual Law Reform marches as a schoolboy. He has written educational television, worked in the film industry and is a lecturer in English language. In 2013, he graduated with a Masters of Creative Writing, also winning the post-graduate writing prize. Brendaniel’s first novel, Tane’s War (Cloud Ink Press, 2018) explored the intersection of three lives in the 1950s: Aussie and Briar, two young shearers working on a training station, and Tane, an older man whose past haunts him, particularly his service during World War One. Tane’s War has received critical acclaim in New Zealand and overseas.

Peter Wells is an award-winning author and film-maker. In 2018 Unity Books gave Peter Wells a $20,000 award for his ‘body of work but also his long-span social justice activism ... His strong sense of social justice combined with his literary achievements has nourished, sustained and encouraged readers in Aotearoa.’ Peter has consistently broken barriers in both publishing (first gay book written under the author’s own name) and film (Jewel’s Darl showed transgender characters in a sympathetic light to New Zealand in 1986). Most recently he produced a memoir of his family, Dear Oliver, as well as a series of Facebook posts chronicling his experience of living with cancer, later reprinted in The Spinoff under the title ‘Hello Darkness’, which won a Media Voyager Award in 2018. Hello Darknessis also the title of his forthcoming book which includes this material and more. He co-created the Auckland Writers Festival in 1999 and the samesame but different LGBTQI Writers Festival in 2015.

Announcement

5/11/2018

We are delighted to announce that our application to the Creative New Zealand Arts Grant was successful, and as a result our festival will be one of the biggest yet. Many thanks to our board members, programme director and all our supporters.

The Same Same but Different festival is in the final stages of confirming it's programme for 2019, so stay tuned for an update shortly.

If you are interested in supporting our programme, why not become a patron of the festival.

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