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Ashleigh Young

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Ashleigh Young (born 1983) is a poet, essayist, editor and creative writing teacher. She received the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize in 2017 for her second book, a collection of personal essays titled Can You Tolerate This? which also won the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

Life

Young was born in 1983 in Te Kūiti[1] and grew up there and in Wellington.[2] Writing featured in her life from childhood, when she wrote and illustrated a series of small books, started a magazine, created her own bedroom library,[3][4] and (with her brothers) made movies with a borrowed video camera.[5]

She lived in London for several years[6] and also worked for a year as director of the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden in Wellington, a house in which "you could step inside and imagine yourself to be a child in another century.[7][5]

She lists some of her favourite New Zealand writers and poets as Pip Adam, Hera Lindsay Bird, James Brown, Jenny Bornholdt, Geoff Cochrane and Bill Manhire, as well as newer voices such as Sam Duckor-Jones and Tayi Tibble.[8]

She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

Work

In 2009, Young was awarded an MA in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington.[9][10]

She won the 2009 Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for her MA portfolio (which included the essays later to be published in Can You Tolerate This?)[11] and the 2009 Landfall Essay Competition. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize[12] and she was one of the winners of the 2016 Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency in Association with The Spinoff Award.[13]

She took writing workshops with Kate De Goldi and Harry Ricketts[14] and began writing chapter books for Learning Media, which she credits with teaching her editing skills.[5] Her poetry and essays have been widely published in print and online journals, including Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction, Five Dials (UK) and The Griffith Review (Australia).[10]

The collection of essays in her second book, Can You Tolerate This?, have been described as "wry, confessional, understated and often hilarious".[15] The book won the 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University,[16][17] and was described by the judges as "honest, insightful prose" that "offers intimate and playful glimpses of coming of age in small-town New Zealand".[16] Young was the first New Zealander to win this prize. Recipients are not advised that they are being considered for the award, and she had no prior warning before receiving an email to say she had won.[18][19] She collected her prize at the Windham Campbell Festival at Yale in September 2017.[20] Can You Tolerate This? also won the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction 2017.[21]

In 2018, Young was made an Honorary Literary Fellow in the New Zealand Society of Authors' Waitangi Day Honours.[22]

She has been invited to appear in a number of literary festivals. In 2016, she took part in the Ruapehu Festival, including a session with James Brown and Bill Nelson on Poets Who Cycle.[23] In 2017, she appeared at the Auckland Writers Festival[24] and the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival.[25] In 2018, she appeared at the New Zealand Festival Writers & Readers Week,[26][27] the Sydney Writers Festival,[28] the Bathurst Writers’ & Readers’ Festival,[29] Adelaide Writers' Week[30] and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.[31]

She is an editor at Victoria University Press.[32][16] She previously co-taught a Science Writing Workshop at Victoria University with Rebecca Priestley.[5] In 2019 she took on the role of poetry editor at The Spinoff Review of Books.[33]

Bibliography

  • Magnificent Moon (VUP, 2012) ISBN 9780864737632 (Poetry)[34]
  • "You Are Now Entering" (Pantograph Punch, 2012) (Poetry)
  • Can You Tolerate This? (VUP, 2016; also published by Giramondo, 2017) ISBN 9781776560769 (Essays)[35]
  • "A final binding ruling on the correct spelling of the word eh" (The Spinoff, 2 Dec 2016) (Essay)
  • How I Get Ready (VUP, 2019) ISBN 9781776562367 (Poetry)

Awards

References

  1. ^ Braunias, Steve (1 March 2017). "Breaking (well it was at the time): Ashleigh Young wins $229,837.07 in a major literary prize!!!". The Spinoff. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  2. ^ "Magnificent Moon". Victoria University Press. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  3. ^ a b Bird, Hera Lindsay (31 October 2012). "Magnificent Moon". The Pantograph Punch. Archived from the original on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  4. ^ Seda, Lucia (12 December 2018). ""One Reader's Familiarity Can Be Another Reader's Strangeness": An Interview with Ashleigh Young". Honeysuckle magazine. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d Dann, Jennifer (2 May 2017). "Twelve Questions with Wellington author Ashleigh Young". NZ herald. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  6. ^ Watts, Madeleine. "Interview with Ashleigh Young". Griffith Review. 43: Pacific Highways.
  7. ^ Young, Ashleigh (3 July 2018). "Katherine Mansfield Would Approve". The Paris Review. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  8. ^ Komlos-Hrobsky, Emma (12 July 2018). "Something Remarkable, By Your Own Measure: An Interview with Ashleigh Young". Tin House. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  9. ^ a b "Aotearoa Reads Details | New Zealand Book Council". www.bookcouncil.org.nz. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  10. ^ a b "Ashleigh Young". Victoria University Press. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  11. ^ Gilman, Rachel A.G. (16 January 2019). "Bookworm Beat: Ashleigh Young". The rational creature: a feminist journal and blog. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  12. ^ "Finalist - Ashleigh Young". Sarah Broom: the life and work of a New Zealand poet. Archived from the original on 25 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  13. ^ Young, Ashleigh (10 October 2016). "The Monday Surrey Hotel Writers Residency Award Report: Ashleigh Young meets SJD, talks to a cat, and the cat talks back". The Spinoff. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  14. ^ Matthews, Philip (14 May 2017). "What the future holds for NZ author Ashleigh Young after her $235,000 prize". Stuff. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  15. ^ Trapp, Maggie (2 July 2018). "A New Zealand poet turns a lyrical eye on her homeland through essays in 'Can You Tolerate This?'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  16. ^ a b c d "Ashleigh Young: Nonfiction 2017 New Zealand". Windham Campbell Prizes. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  17. ^ "Creative New Zealand congratulates author Ashleigh Young". Creative New Zealand. 7 March 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  18. ^ "Ashleigh Young: creativity and self-consciousness". Radio New Zealand. 13 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  19. ^ a b Dooney, Laura (2 March 2017). "Wellington writer Ashleigh Young wins prestigious Yale University prize". Stuff. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  20. ^ "2017 Windham Campbell Festival boasts literary star power". YaleNews. 8 September 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  21. ^ "Ashleigh Young wins Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction". Royal Society Te Apārangi. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  22. ^ "Wellington writer Ashleigh Young receives national honours". Scoop culture. 6 February 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  23. ^ "Ashleigh Young". Ruapehu Writers Festival. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  24. ^ Lawry, Briar (20 May 2017). "AWF17: The Art of the Essay: Roxane Gay, Ashleigh Young, Teju Cole". Booksellers NZ. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  25. ^ "Ashleigh Young". Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  26. ^ Black, Tara (11 March 2018). "NZF Writers & Readers: Cut it Out, with Jane Parkin, Ashleigh Young, Fergus Barrowman". Booksellers NZ. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  27. ^ "Writers & Readers Speakers". New Zealand Festival. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  28. ^ "Ashleigh Young: Can You Tolerate This? 5 May -Conversation". Sydney Writers Festival. Archived from the original on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  29. ^ Cavanagh, Steven (17 April 2018). "New Zealand writer Ashleigh Young to be guest at Bathurst festival". Western Advocate. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  30. ^ "Ashleigh Young and Felicity Castagna to Appear at the Adelaide Writers' Week". Giramondo. 5 February 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  31. ^ "Can You Tolerate This?". Cheltenham Festivals. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  32. ^ "About VUP". vup.victoria.ac.nz. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  33. ^ Young, Ashleigh (23 January 2019). "A brief note on feelings by our new poetry editor Ashleigh Young". The Spinoff. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  34. ^ "Magnificent Moon Launch, 1st November 2012". Unity Books. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  35. ^ "Martin Edmond reviews Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young". Mascara Literary Review. 23 January 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  36. ^ Otago University Press. "Landfall Essay Competition". www.otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  37. ^ "Prize winners | International Institute of Modern Letters | Victoria University of Wellington". www.victoria.ac.nz. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  38. ^ "Sarah Broom - the life and work of a New Zealand poet". www.sarahbroom.co.nz. Archived from the original on 25 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  39. ^ "Past Winners | New Zealand Book Awards Trust". www.nzbookawards.nz. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  40. ^ "Young shortlisted for 2019 Folio Prize". Books+Publishing. 5 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
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