Dunedin poet Liz Breslin was selected by Norwich UNESCO City of Literature for a virtual writer’s residency, ‘Imagining the City’, in February this year.

During the month-long residency, five UNESCO writers in residence ran workshops and explored connections between Norwich and their own UNESCO City of Literature. Linking up with local writers and working on a range of commissions and projects was stimulating for the residents and shone a light on their cities.

Liz says: ‘I was fortunate enough to secure a UNESCO City of Literature residency in Kraków, Poland in 2019. The experience taught me a lot – that the Cities of Literature network is incredible, and that these opportunities are gifts of time, creation and connection.  So in 2021 the idea of a virtual residency seemed natural and energising, and I was thrilled to be selected for my ideas about watching modern life watching us through webcams.’

Liz was the winner of the Kathleen Grattan Award for a Sequence of Poems. She’s took part in a spoke’n’word tour of the Otago Central Rail Trail, to be screened as rail:lines, a documentary film. Her second poem collection, In bed with the feminists, is due to be published by Dead Bird Books in 2021.

Collaboration comes naturally to Liz and in 2020 who co-created Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature’s ‘Possibilities Project’, inviting writers to film their own poems from home during lockdown to add to the City of Literature’s permanent record.

See how the virtual projects unfolded at www.cityofliterature.co.nz