Adrienne Jansen

Adrienne Jansen
Born1947
Wellington
OccupationWriter
NationalityNew Zealand

Adrienne Jansen is a New Zealand creative writing teacher, editor and a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She has worked closely with immigrants, and her writing often relates to the migrant experience.

Biography

Adrienne Jansen was born in Wellington in 1947.[1][2]

She worked as a writer at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa for 11 years.[1] She was also heavily involved in refugee resettlement and teaching ESOL (English for speakers of other languages).[1][3] In the 1980s, she helped set up the Porirua Language Project (now part of English Language Partners).[4][5][6] This background and her years of experience of living and working among immigrants is reflected in her writing (both fiction and non-fiction), which often focuses on the migrant experience.[7][6] She has frequently worked alongside migrants to help them tell their stories.[4][8]

Her published work includes fiction and non-fiction for adults and children, collections of poetry, short stories broadcast on radio and poems and stories in anthologies such as 4th Floor[9] and Best New Zealand Poems.[10] Her stories have been highly commended in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition ("War", 2002) and shortlisted for the BNZ Literary Awards.[1] She worked with Guy Jansen in the last years of his life on his book Sing New Zealand: the story of choral music in Aotearoa.[11]

In 1990, Jansen was a Winston Churchill Fellow, travelling to Canada and the United Kingdom to look at access to education for disadvantaged groups in those countries.[1][2] She founded the Creative Writing Programme at Whitireia Polytechnic in 1993.[1] This was the first full-year, full-time writing course in New Zealand, and it was designed by Jansen to be accessible to all and to encourage diversity and inclusiveness.[12] She was coordinator of the programme until 1999 and taught fiction and editing as well as writing several online courses until most of the programme was disestablished in 2019.[13][14] She was co-founder of Whitireia Creative Writing Programme's Escalator Press in 2013[5] and her novel The Score was the first book to be published by this new imprint.[4] In 2016, she helped set up Landing Press.[15][5]

Jansen has appeared at numerous author talks[16] and writing festivals.[17][8] She has also run creative writing workshops for Māori writers (with Huia Publishers), Pasifika writers (with Creative New Zealand) and in Vanuatu and Indonesia.[1]

Her manuscript "Light Keeping" was shortlisted for the 2021 Michael Gifkins Prize.[18]

She lives in Titahi Bay, Porirua.[16]

Bibliography

Non-fiction

  • Neighbourhood Groups: ideas to get you started, co-authored with Sally Tripp (NZWEA, 1981; new ed. Whitcoulls, 1986)
  • Having a Baby in New Zealand, co-authored with Ruth Dawson (Wellington Multicultural Educational Resource Centre, 1984), published in English, Samoan, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Khmer
  • I Have in My Arms Both Ways (Bridget Williams Books, 1990, republished 2015)[19]
  • The Crescent Moon: The Asian Face of Islam in New Zealand, with photographs by Ans Westra (Asia New Zealand Foundation, 2009)[20]
  • Abdel's Favourites from the Marrakech Café, with Abdelghani El Adraoui (Marrakech Café, 2013)
  • Migrant Journeys: New Zealand Taxi Drivers Tell Their Stories, with co-author Liz Grant (Bridget Williams Books, 2015)[2][21]

Children's non-fiction

  • Borany's story (Learning Media, 1991), shortlisted for the LIANZA Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award in 1992[22]
  • Thirteen flavours (Learning Media, 1995)
  • Asli's story (Learning Media, 2000)
  • I say, you say (Learning Media, 2001)
  • What's the difference? (Learning Media, 2001)
  • Fear (Learning Media, 2002)
  • A pot of gold ; and, The clever farmer : folk tales from Vietnam (Learning Media, 2003)

Novels

  • Spirit Writing (Harper Collins, 1999)
  • Floating the Fish on Bamboo (Harper Collins, 2001)
  • The Score (Escalator Press, 2013)[4]
  • A Line of Sight (Escalator Press, 2015)
  • A Change of Key (Escalator Press, 2018)[6][23]
  • Light Keeping (Quentin Wilson Publishing, 2023)

Poetry

  • A stone seat and a shadow tree (Inkweed, 2001)
  • Keel & drift (Landing Press, 2016)[24]
  • All of us (with Carina Gallegos) (Landing Press, 2018)[25][26]

As editor

  • The Curioseum: Collected Stories of the Odd and Marvellous (Te Papa Press, 2014),[27] shortlisted for the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards 2015[28]
  • More of us (Landing Press, 2019)[29]
  • Somewhere a Cleaner (Landing Press, 2020)
  • More than a Roof (Landing Press, 2021)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Jansen, Adrienne". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. 15 December 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  2. ^ a b c "The Monday excerpt: the taxi driver who survived the Khmer Rouge". The Spinoff. 30 May 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  3. ^ Jansen, Adrienne (31 January 2017). "'We're thinking a lot about refugees these days': the story of the famous writer who arrived in New Zealand as a refugee and a nobody". The Spinoff. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d Carlisle, Talia (20 September 2013). "Scoring a novel with a difference". Stuff. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  5. ^ a b c "Connection: The Arts Communications Hui". The Dowse Art Museum. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  6. ^ a b c "Adrienne Jansen: A Change of Key". RNZ. 18 September 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  7. ^ Jansen, Adrienne. "Saneha and me: Losing and finding". 4th Floor 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  8. ^ a b "Adrienne Jansen". Verb Wellington. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  9. ^ "Adrienne Jansen". 4th Floor 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  10. ^ Jansen, Adrienne. "A woman is kneeling in a stream". Best New Zealand Poems 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  11. ^ "10 Questions with Adrienne Jansen". Massey University Press. 7 August 2019. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  12. ^ Jansen, Adrienne (Winter 2017). "Why Inclusiveness counts". New Zealand Author. No. 309. pp. 24–26.
  13. ^ Iles, Julie (30 July 2019). "Whitireia documents show enrolments close for 64 courses". Stuff. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  14. ^ Jansen, Adrienne (Spring 2019). "Does it Matter?". New Zealand Author. No. 318. pp. 10–13.
  15. ^ "About Us". Landing Press. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  16. ^ a b "Author talk: meet Adrienne Jansen". Wellington City Libraries Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui. 14 March 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  17. ^ "Adrienne Jansen". Manawatu Writers Festival. 18 July 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  18. ^ "Michael Gifkins Prize 2021 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 16 June 2020. Archived from the original on 16 June 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  19. ^ "I Have in My Arms Both Ways: Migrant Women Talk about their Lives". Bridget Williams Books. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  20. ^ "A look at the Indian Muslim community in inner city". The Star Online. 27 July 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  21. ^ "Adrienne Jansen and Helmi Al Khattat - Stories from the Taxi". RNZ. 29 November 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  22. ^ "LIANZA Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award". Christchurch City Libraries. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  23. ^ Geddis, Penny M. (22 November 2018). "Book Review: A Change of Key, by Adrienne Jansen". The Reader: The Booksellers New Zealand Blog. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  24. ^ Ricketts, Harry (21 December 2016). "NZ Books Review - "Keel & Drift" by Adrienne Jansen". RNZ. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  25. ^ Green, Paula (13 November 2018). "2 poems and a conversation – All of Us by Adrienne Jansen and carina gallegos". NZ Poetry Shelf. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  26. ^ Green, Paula (8 August 2018). "Poetry Box audio spot: Adrienne Jansen's wonderful 'Next year'". Poetry Box. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  27. ^ Forster, Sarah (26 March 2014). "Book Review: The Curioseum: Collected stories of the odd & marvellous". The Reader: the Booksellers New Zealand Blog. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  28. ^ "PANZ Book Design Awards 2015 Shortlist". Book Design Awards. 8 April 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  29. ^ "ELP Porirua poems feature in 'More of us'". English Language Partners New Zealand. 8 April 2019. Retrieved 8 December 2019.