Described as a “landmark anthology”, Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another features the work of 27 ‘mixed-heritage’ creatives from across Aotearoa – writers, musicians, poets, theatre markers, artists, and cartoonists both emerging and established, a celebration of those fostering the ‘underground’ creative scenes across the motu. 

Published by Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington based 5Ever books, the hefty 200+ page publication was released in May and features a cover photo called ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ by Harry Matheson, featuring models Dani and Tee Hao-Aickin, with contributions inside from Emele Ugavule, Chyna-Lily Tjauw Rawlinson, Chye-Ling Huang and many more.  It was edited by Jennifer Cheuk 卓嘉敏 (who is also behind Rat World magazine), with support from Eric Soakai (poet, writer and artist) and Damien Levi (the lead editor of LGBTQIA+ arts and literature journal Bad Apple) who were also part of the editorial and mentorship team.

Abigail Dell’Avo met up with Jennifer, Damien and Eric, photographing them in Karangahape Road’s Samoa House Library - the independent arts library and alternative education platform, where the book is available to lend, and was also launched - and hearing about the vision, challenges and significance of bringing this anthology to life.

What strategies or ways did you support and nurture emerging contributors throughout the creation of Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another?

Jenn: Giving space to emerging creatives involves considering the timeline for creating work. It takes a lot of time and energy when you haven't had the space to investigate identity. Everyone had a really long period of time to mull over things rather than just jump into creating work. 

We were always open about having a call or a catch up, and I think that was a great way to break this barrier of feeling like you needed to come with a finished piece of work; that you could just have an idea and we could work on it together. 

What role did feedback and dialogue play in the editorial process with emerging contributors?

Jenn: We had a very open editorial process. It was about understanding and moving towards a comfortable outcome for everyone, especially when dealing with a lot of archival material and personal familial topics. We needed to avoid imposing ourselves and also our perceived ideas of what “good literature” is. Instead, we focused on their ideas and what they were trying to achieve. Instead of thinking, “this can't work”, we worked together to make it work.

Eric: The editing was an invitation. It wasn't an imperative to follow, but rather an invitation to explore different avenues the pieces could go down, talking to them about like, what is the spirit of your piece? Are we moving towards that, that was a really important part.

Damien: Building that relationship, and having a sense of author care beforehand was essential. We had a collaborative approach to polishing the work into the best form that it can be, but the most important thing is that the contributor's voice remains true to them and that they feel the final piece represents what they were trying to achieve. 

What challenges did you encounter in working collectively with a diverse group of contributors, and how did you overcome them?

Jenn: Creating an anthology with such a variety of perspectives, languages, and cultures requires recognizing your own preconceptions and biases. I come from an East Asian background, and without this team, I might have skewed towards picking more East Asian pieces. We naturally lean towards our biases, but it's about taking steps to rectify that. We thought about how to support each person effectively. This anthology is a text for everyone, and we needed to convey that in the editorial process.

Eric: I needed to honour the diversity of voice, so I engaged with my elders from the Melanesian and Micronesian diasporas, to properly speak to the parts that I recognise I can’t – that was an important part.

Damien: In traditional publishing, you would have a set style and not really deviate from that too much. But considering the nature of this work and the different communities involved, sometimes those rules had to bend to fit the expression the person feels is genuine to their experience and some of those conventional rules of grammar or punctuation weren't necessary. If the work is doing what it needs to do and the person feels that that is accurate to their experience, then those things are less important. 

In practice, that meant engaging with each contributor as to how they want those elements portrayed, like the different languages that they use and how those are capitalised – do we follow an English tradition, or do we use an alternative?

Eric: I think that centering the artists and their work while also making sure that it speaks to the different conventions that our art forms sit under, was a beautiful challenge, but I also think it speaks to the multi-ethnic backgrounds that we come from, to say one thing is also to say three. So it kind of is humorous, in a sense that that was one of the big challenges, that was just another form of coming from more than one place and trying to negotiate that.

How has the collective editorial approach impacted the final content and the overall message of the anthology?

Jenn: It was really awesome to have such a great team that was excited about the way that we could give autonomy to these contributors. People keep saying there's so much, it's big, and I'm like, yeah, it needed to be though!

Damien: Typically, within an anthology like this, you're not reading it front to back. So, a lot of the conventions that you would use for a novel or a non-fiction book don't apply. So why try to stick to those in this type of work? When you can jump in and read a poem and leave, or you can read two essays and a poem in a comic and then leave, there's no concern of everything having to fit the same standard. 

Eric: There was a beautiful exploration into what multicultural ways of being could be through this book, how they show different things. It's like a smorgasbord of different experiences. I feel like where the conventional edges that you would shave off, we've left on, so that those who come from those different margins or backgrounds get to hold on to those edges and see this as a proper work that reflects them, instead of being like oh they let them keep this part. I think in that way, it's a great reflection of what different art can look like across Aotearoa from those who have been able to submit.

Any final comments about the future of this anthology? How do you feel other people can support these types of work?

Eric: I want to honour you for this, what you've done, Jenn, is set up a blueprint for how we can go forward if we want to engage with different ethnicities within our art practice and how we create a culture of care around honouring their stories in a way that is good to their culture, not just to the one that we come from. That's one of my biggest takeaways that I would like to start to both implement for myself and the spaces I’m in and hopefully see start to happen in other spaces as well.

Damien: It's really exciting to be participating in the independent publishing scene in Aotearoa at the moment; it feels invigorating in a time when traditional publishing seems to be less interested in reflecting the lived experiences of our communities. This anthology is a statement to conventional publishing that we exist and that our stories are valuable, necessary, desired and sought after. 

Jenn: I just want to say, keep supporting independent publishing, especially queer, BIPOC, and disabled publishers. I feel like there's this new thing that I'm feeling, where the material texts that we're all making are so collective and collaborative now. We're creating zines, graphic novels, and published texts, and we're holding them all together, and I think that's cool; just keep supporting all the cool stuff that's coming out.

Eric: If we want to create a community of art that thrives, then this is how we should start to do work.

Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another, published by 5 Ever Books, $65.