Meg Torwl: 2013

Meg Torwl, a New Zealander who lived in Canada, stayed at the centre in early 2013. She described the centre as "superb beyond all expectations." Meg was working on a prose memoir "a girl called brian," a flash fiction version of which "black and white" placed second in a NZSA queer flash fiction writing competition, published in Express newspaper. She also worked on a collection of poetry. Her writing has been anthologized in NZ, the UK, USA, and Canada. She wrote two poetry chapbooks: (in) valid (2009), poems about gender, sexuality, disability, sensuality and the south pacific; and Transit of Venus (2012), a collection of poems about love, public transit and life transitions, short listed for the Doire Press Prize, Ireland. She was a graduate of The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University (2011) in Poetry and Lyric Prose with Mentor Jen Currin and Director Betsy Warland. She wrote and directed video documentaries distributed by Video Out, as well as fifty half hour programmes with Radio New Zealand National (2007–2008). She had a retrospective exhibition of her work "Re-Tern: Hokinga Mahara" at Thistle Hall Gallery, Wellington, March 5–10, 2013. Sadly, Meg passed away in 2013 soon after her return to Canada. She was an inspirational person and is keenly missed.