Iona Winter

2022 blessings to you and your whānau WordPress peeps. Wishing you peace, as we traverse this ever-changing landscape which has become our world.

2022 has seen me complete my latest manuscript, and it’s gone off for some expert eyes to take a fresh look. This collection, started after Reuben’s death, highlights my bereavement process (through memoir, photography and poetry). It’s not a light read, however I’m hopeful it’ll lend words for those who cannot find them whilst wading through the complexities of being suicide bereaved. But we need to find a publisher first!

Another toikupu (poem) from the collection was accepted for publication last week (watch this space), and the first to be accepted ‘Morass’ was recently published in the New Zealand Poetry Society’s ‘Kissing a Ghost’ 2021 Anthology (as below).

And here’s the link again, for two others from the collection, ‘Voice’ and ‘Amputated Limbs’ in both written and audio form (as previously posted) https://www.verbwellington.nz/podcasts/iona-winter-toikupu

The process of creating a new collection, more hybrid than before, has been exhausting, incredibly demanding, and taken me to places I didn’t want to visit in myself. That said, I’m glad (in the weirdest of ways) to have allowed myself to go there ~ to complete a body of work during the first year of not having my beautiful son alive has been a massive undertaking. It’s meant the people I love have witnessed my disappearance, online and in person, but to those who’ve stayed the course and continued to love me I am deeply grateful to you.

Nui te aroha, much love

Iona x