Book-loving Wellingtonians will have a good reason to get out of bed on Mondays from 16 July: the International Institute of Modern Letters' will be running its annual Writers on Mondays series at City Gallery Wellington. The talks are free and feature a wide variety of local and international writers.

First up is UK novelist and poet Lavinia Greenlaw (pictured).Book-loving Wellingtonians will have a good reason to get out of bed on Mondays from 16 July: the International Institute of Modern Letters' will be running its annual Writers on Mondays series at City Gallery Wellington. The talks are free and feature a wide variety of local and international writers.

First up is UK novelist and poet Lavinia Greenlaw (pictured).Greenlaw has written three highly regarded volumes of poetry and two novels: Mary George of Allnorthover, winner of France's Prix du Premier Roman Etranger, and An Irresponsible Age. She has won the UK's Forward Prize for Best Single Poem, and has produced a variety of programmes for BBC radio.

Greenlaw is in New Zealand at the invitation of Victoria University, where she will offer the fourth in a series of international masterclasses for writers enrolled in the MA in Creative Writing programme. Earlier masterclasses were taught by Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford, essayist Eliot Weinberger, and leading US scriptwriting teacher Linda Vorhees.

Talks to focus on poetry from July til September

Writers on Mondays continues on 23 July with Best New Zealand Poems 06, a reading by poets selected for the annual online anthology of New Zealand's best poetry in the lead-up to Montana National Poetry Day.

There's a two-week break while the gallery is closed, then a strong poetry emphasis continues with appearances from US poet Dora Malech (13 August), who is spending the year teaching at the Institute of Modern Letters; cult Wellington poet and novelist Geoff Cochrane (20 August); Italian translator and scholar Vincent Moleta discussing Michelangelo's poetic output (27 August); and a rare chance to hear Paris-based New Zealand poet and journalist Andrew Johnston (3 September) who is working on a major study of New Zealand poetry as 2007 J D Stout Research Fellow.

Voices of the future and international guests

From 10 September to 1 October we hear the voices of the future, as MA students currently completing novels, stories, poetry collections, memoirs and scripts offer a sampler of their work.

Victoria University/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence Dave Armstrong (Niu Sila, King and Country, The Tutor) previews his work in progress (8 October), and the season concludes with two more international guests - distinguished Australian biographer Brenda Niall (15 October) and US writer James Galvin (29 October), author of the critically acclaimed non-fiction work The Meadow and six books of poetry.

4/7/07