Budding journalists at the South Learning Centre

Journalism students at South Learning Centre are celebrating their hard work and pressured deadlines with some stunning results. The Canterbury Oracle, The Papercut and The South Library Bulletin newspapers are super pieces of work.

The In The News programme ran for 8 weeks in Term 4 of 2013 and involved students investigating the composition of a newspaper, suitable and varied content, the reality of advertisements and the pressure to produce articles and final publications under the duress of deadlines.

Students visited The Press to interview the chief editor, advertisement officer and experience the day-to-day running of Christchurch’s busiest newspaper.

In the News is an example of the interesting programmes our learning centres offer  to schools. They also run a great variety of after school and holiday programmes.

Fare ye well Pete Seeger, 1919-2014

Kaffe Fassett quilt display at South Library

Renowned textile artist Kaffe Fassett is coming to town and the South Library is hosting an exhibition of quilts using stunning fabrics designed by the Kaffe Fassett Collective. Kaffe is known all over the world for his brilliant colour combinations and designs, in many forms of needlework as well as quilting. He is the author of over 40 books and  a prolific designer of textiles for the patchwork industry. He works with a talented team of designers who form the Kaffe Fassett Collective. The Collective includes Kaffee Fassett, Brandon Mably and Phillip Jacobs.

Fassett and Brandon Mably are visiting Christchurch to give a public lecture on February 6. The lecture will take place at the Beckenham School Hall from 7pm. Tickets ( there may still be some available) cost $50.00 and are available from Stitch, 27a Colombo Street, 03 332 1820, contact fenella@stitchplayroom.comThe lecture is designed to inspire and motivate. The presentation highlights works from his latest project, these include his patchwork quilt,fabric, needlepoint, mosaic, painting and knitting designs.

The quilts hung in the exhibition have been created by local artists, including award winning quilt artist Penny Jameson, using some of the many stunning fabrics designed by the Kaffe Fassett Collective. They show a range of traditional techniques and patterns with a modern twist and eye popping colour. Find the 2 quilts by our very own Katie Grady in the exhibition.

The exhibition  runs until February 18.

Ten years ago today … Janet Frame died

Janet Frame photo in Kete Horowhenua

Find out more about Janet Frame.

Janet Frame ranks as one of New Zealand’s finest ever novelists, with an international reputation. (Helen Clark on the announcement of Janet Frame’s Prime Minister’s Award for Literary achievement 2003)

One of the senses in which Frame is decidedly not ordinary is that she is a writer who, in the past, has gone to considerable lengths to avoid publicity for herself or for her books. She is the only author I know of who writes under her own name but lives under a pseudonym: Janet Clutha. Biography and Compassionate Truth: Writing a Life of Janet Frame by Michael King in the Australian Humanities Review.

She had no consistent “message”; but she had suffered and seen suffering, and she did not want it to be overlooked. (C.K Stead The gift of language in NZ Listener)

In private, with family or a few trusted friends, she could be quick, witty, articulate, entertained and entertaining, capable of everything, not excluding malice. She had her bad days; but at her best she sparkled and shone like her own writing.(C.K Stead The gift of language in NZ Listener)

I think what is essential and durable in her work is a tragi-comic vision, bleak in its implications but full of life, courage and humour in its expression. New Zealand has lost an icon, but we have not lost the books she wrote nor the letters and records of an exemplary life. The life and the work together are reminders of how unpredictable, uncontainable, unmanageable – how rare and mysterious – real talent can be. (C.K. Stead)The gift of language

It is ten years ago today that we heard of the death of Janet Frame.

Ten years ago today I was working at Staple mag and heard on the radio that Janet Frame had died. Called my dad immediately.

— Rachael King (@rachaelking70) January 28, 2014

@rachaelking70 I remember the day Janet Frame died – I posted my first novel manuscript to a NYC literary agent. A bad omen, of course 😉

— Sarah Laing (@SarahELaing) January 28, 2014

@rachaelking70 Well remembered! That was very last week editing the Listener. Changed cover at last minute, ran CK Stead's brilliant obit.

— Finlay Macdonald (@MacFinlay) January 28, 2014

It's 10 years today since Janet Frame died – remember her with @nzonscreen's collection of screen adaptations & docs http://t.co/51kznlItQT

— irene gardiner (@irenenzos) January 28, 2014

Find out more about Janet Frame.

W. and E. Broadway: 1902

Broadway’s Confectioners, shop, Christchurch. Webb, Steffano, 1880?-1967 : Collection of negatives. Ref: 1/1-003970-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22795703

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We have digitised a rather splendid 1902 publication Tourists’ guide to Canterbury.