Iona Winter

Category: Aotearoa

  • Writing in all its glory

    Kia ora whānau, friends and supporters, I’m delighted to share this news with you all. Yesterday I was awarded the Headland 2016 Frontier Prize for story of the year by an unpublished author, for ‘The Lake’. Issue 6, which coincidentally includes both winning stories, is free for download before Christmas. Happy reading…

  • shackle

    a formerly acquainted terror surges forth from a throwaway line disrupting the equilibrium and held breath locks tight vigilant fractured edges on a shackled network of memory etched skin

  • Eggshell

    I fish around the bowl, for bits of eggshell that have dropped. “No yolk, only the whites,” my grandmother’s mantra. The shell eludes me. A small piece darts around the layers of white—thick and deceptive. Like lies, I think to myself. Like lies.

  • Updates

    Kia ora WordPress whānau, I’m stoked to say my story ‘Honey’ was chosen for the latest Flash Frontier publication: Birds (one of my favourite topics and sources of inspiration!). This wonderful collection of local and international writers is a fantastic read http://www.flash-frontier.com/november-2016-birds/#honey On another note, I am working away on my manuscript. A collection of poetry, short stories…

  • Filigree

    Ngahere-forest-bush-woodland filigreed leaves underfoot trunks delicately lichened offer canopied shelter within.   In limitless peace it all ends and begins kākāriki shoots are embedded in the cracks between stones as am I.  

  • tendril

    i dream of subtle touch  silken-tendril-cobwebs where morning dew clings ahead of its release earthwards   your facial contour as familiar as lines on my palm why does my skin remember the pulse of you beneath it?   i dream of subtle touch silken-tendril-spiderwebs where morning dew clings

  • kōwhai

    I walk at night to different sounds as the land stills herself and breathes out my ears always pick up more when my sight is less. Beneath ancient kōwhai trees with blackened skin I allow myself to be showered by their blossoms. My story has no beginning or end but is a bundle of kelp multi–stranded and…

  • kāinga

    up here the city is like a war zone sirens-helicopters-violence with indigenous forms commodified on buildings and some of my friends will say they’re immune   i’m impatient for harakeke wind-song old gnarled scented-blossom trees and familiar paths out to the pā kāinga-home beckons me   up here people live under concrete bridges amidst the steady hum of traffic to lull them to sleep while governments refuse to tackle poverty…

  • old ways

    i wish for the old ways of recompense rather than the blame that pervades modernity   transgression affects a whole whānau oscillates the extremities leaving none untouched   i wish for the old ways where the offence was laid down with intention at the feet of the other

  • resonate

    your gaze references inherant mirrors and sonorous caverns of forgotten lovers faint echoes engraved in the bedrock   your words glide willingly subcutaneous breath resonates off damp walls and i recognise sanctuary lies within