Kiri Pihana-Wong

Kiri Piahana-Wong (Ngāti Ranginui, Chinese, English) is a poet, editor and publisher. She founded Anahera Press in 2011 to provide a publication platform for Māori and Pasifika poets.

Kiri also works with poetry and fiction as a book reviewer, manuscript assessor, anthology editor and NZ Society of Authors mentor. Her most recent projects are a new 2-book anthology series showcasing contemporary Māori literature, with Witi Ihimaera and Vaughan Rapatahana; and a bilingual anthology of short fiction in English and Te Reo Māori, with Michelle Elvy. As a poet, her work has appeared in over forty journals and anthologies, including Landfall, Essential NZ Poems, Puna Wai Kōrero, Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women Poets in Translation, Vā: Stories by Women of the Moana, and more. She has one full-length collection, Night Swimming (2013), and a second, Give Me An Ordinary Day, is forthcoming. Kiri lives in Tāmaki Makaurau with her partner and five-year-old son.

What does leadership look like to you?

Kiri: For me, good leadership is empowering others to be the best that they can be, and to help others grow beyond anything that might be limiting them.

How does your community show up in your practice?

Kiri:  The publishing mahi I do works because a community of people are behind it. From all the different people whose expertise creates the book (author, editor, copyeditor, cover artist, designer, typesetter, proof-reader, printer) to the people that come together to launch and celebrate (some bringing kai, some donating their time to set up the venue, others there to mihi and to tautoko the author, those who sweep the floors afterwards and do the dishes). A book is written, produced and celebrated in community.