Workshop
Writing in the Present Moment and into the Unexpected

Join Spoor Books authors Richard von Sturmer and Terri Te Tau for a creative writing workshop that moves from responding to the world around us to writing into unexpected realities.

Being attentive to the present moment, to the natural world, and to our own nature is essential for good, poetic writing. With poet Richard von Sturmer, we will explore haiku and tanka, forms of Japanese poetry now widely practised in the West, as ways of responding imaginatively to what is happening around us. We will also look at key aspects of Japanese poetry such as yūgen (mystery and depth), sabi-wabi (the transient and the imperfect), and mono no aware (a deep feeling for the things of this world).

Yet writing can also take us beyond the familiar world, allowing us to imagine new ideas and phenomena within different contexts. With novelist Terri Te Tau, we will draw on the conventions of science fiction and fantasy to explore how imagined realities can illuminate our very human concerns about how we connect to each other and our environment. We will write about a place of significance to us and consider how we might convey our emotional connections to that place and its people in the event of an unexpected occurrence—such as aliens, wormholes, or dragons.

This workshop is limited to 12 people. Light refreshments provided.

Presented in collaboration with Te Tuhi and Spoor Books on the occasion of Pallavi Paul’s exhibition at Te Tuhi. During the exhibition, Spoor Books presents a pop-up bookshop dedicated to books from beyond the Western world, with a focus on South Asia, the African continent, and the Arab world.

Richard von Sturmer is a writer, performer, and filmmaker. His collection of prose poems, Slender Volumes, published by Spoor Books, was shortlisted for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. He is known for having written the lyrics to Blam Blam Blam’s “There is No Depression in New Zealand.” He is a teacher of Zen Buddhism and the co-founder of the Auckland Zen Centre.

Terri Te Tau (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne ki Wairarapa) is a writer and artist. Her debut novel, The Valley of Unlikely Acquaintances, published by Spoor Books, follows a close-knit Māori community and the Wairarapa forest they are fighting to restore. She was the 2026 Emerging Māori Writer in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington. She holds a PhD in Creative Arts, and she is a member of the art collective Mataaho, whose work won the Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.