Out in deadline city

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

ON LOCATION: Four hours in, Eli Kent churns out a story on a laptop for the Once Upon A Deadline competition.

Arts Festival

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PHIL REID/The Dominion Post Zoom

THE BOYS FROM VENEZUELA: Los Amigos Invisibles, from left, Juan M Roura, Julio Briceno, Maurigo Arcas, Armando Figueredo, and Jose R Torres.

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Six New Zealand playwrights and scriptwriters were given an hour at each of six locations around Wellington to complete a 1200-word short story for the Once Upon A Deadline competition, part of the International Arts Festival.

The stories were then read aloud at the Town Hall.

Dianna Fuemana walked away $2000 richer after winning with her entry The Necklace. "I feels like I just won an Oscar," she said.

The six locations were the airport, Te Papa, Mojo's roastery, Moore Wilson's, a radio newsroom and a Wellington College classroom.

Eli Kent, a Wellington playwright and former Moore Wilson's employee, said he found inspiration for his story at the fish tanks of his former workplace. "I found it really disturbing . . . it was a really awesome image for me."

Writing his story about a former resident returning and experiencing the city anew was made more challenging as he tried to avoid various people he used to work with.

"I was a terrible employee so I tried not to go back there."

Newcastle Jets football players were greeted with the scene on their way out of Wellington after losing to the Phoenix on Sunday. "I've never seen anything like it," captain Matt Thompson said.

Once Upon A Deadline creator Robert Mac said Wellington was an ideal city for the event - it was the second time it had run at the Arts Festival, and only the fourth worldwide since its inception five years ago.

"It's a good way to make [writers] accountable to their work. The only way I'd ever write something good at school was if I knew I had to stand up the next day and read it in class."

Writers and Readers programme manager Laura Kroetsch said the point of the event was to take the "private act of writing into a public space" and to draw inspiration from the public environment.

Measures were taken to ensure the spontaneity of the stories, including issued laptops, and requiring writers to reference the places they had been that day.

To read all the completed stories, visit nzfestival.nzpost.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News

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