Writers Hold Week-end School In Christchurch

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30979, 8 February 1966, Page 14

Writers Hold Week-end School In Christchurch

There were unlimited opportunities for New Zealand writers in radio work, Mr W. Austin, chief producer for the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, told writers attending a week-end school in Christchurch. The school, which was organised by the Christchurch Writers’ Association, covered most aspects of writing, and lecturers included well-known writers. Mr Austin said radio drama drew its strength from its very limitations. It was the subtlest of the dramatic forms because more than any other it depended on the audience’s imagination. It worked through a combination of talk, music, sound, and silence.

“In many ways writing for radio is the masterly art of leaving out,” Mr Austin said. “It depends for its effect on the listener. It only sets up

ideas, and the listener builds on them.” Mr Austin told the more than 100 members present that there would eventually be similar opportunities in television work. “At the moment cost is the prohibitive factor,” he said. “A one-hour television play costs many thousands of pounds and requires intensive co-operation of a large number of experts.”

Mr Austin said that with only one channel available scope would be limited. “It is the middle-line play we shall want,” he said. “In both sound and television we have a moral obligation to the audience.”

Writers’ Prospects

Mr Arnold Wall, associate editor of A. H. and A. W. Reed, Ltd., painted a gloomy picture of a writer’s prospects in New Zealand today.

“A best-seller in New Zealand these days doesn’t sell many more than 2000 copies,” he said. “Television and cheap magazines have made large inroads into the hardcover book iparket.” Mr Wall urged writers of the school to give books as gifts whenever they could. “There is no substitute for a good book,” he said. “If we lose this feature of our heritage we are losing something very valuable. “It is important that children should be given books. It does not matter if they are not classics; they should just be encouraged to acquire the reading habit. “I have been in some houses where there wasn’t a single book,” he said. The well-known Wellington writer, George Joseph, spoke to the school on the writing of short stories.

“We are living in a strange age,” he said;. “The subjects (which were once taboo are now essential prerequisites if you want a story published. “You can’t be published . now unless you are a bit wicked. D. H. Lawrence is kindergarten stuff these days.” Other Speakers On Sunday afternoon the' Rev. John Weir, of St. Bede’s College, discussed poetry, and in the evening Mr R. C. Lamb, of the Canterbury Public Library, spoke on research in writing. On Friday evening the Mayor (Mr G. Manning) welcomed visitors to the school, and said there was not only a great potential for writing in New Zealand, but already many writers had made their presence felt in the literary world.

Welcoming the guest speakers the director of the school (Mr J. D. Watson) of the Christchurch “Star” said that the school was fortunate to have a panel of such competent and good-hearted people.