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As founder and editor-in-chief of Rat World – an Auckland based independent print magazine and collective aiming to showcase underground and underrepresented voices from all over the world – Jennifer Cheuk has made it her mission to highlight emerging, minority and experimental creatives who may not get recognised in traditional publishing platforms.

Facilitating space is a key focus across the board for Cheuk and that approach has been front and centre as she's carried out her duties as guest curator of the New Zealand Young Writers Festival, being held in Aotearoa's only UNESCO city of literature, Otepoti, this weekend. 

Despite being firmly established in the arts, cultural and publishing realms herself, Cheuk admits that she too often grapples with calling herself a writer and that hesitancy motivated her to make this year’s festival all about resisting traditional notions of writing and who writers can be.

Ensemble met Cheuk in what is fertile ground for writers emerged and emerging – a local cafe – to talk through how the festival will create space for all facets of writing and writers.

What's your personal literary background?

I've always wanted to be a writer and I've always been surrounded by books and literature, but perhaps in a more alternative way. I've always been around graphic novels and comics and really interested in those sorts of picture books, I still read heaps of picture books to this day. 

I've always loved magazines and the way that people tell stories in different ways so it was kind of a no brainer that I ended up doing the things that I do now.

How did you get involved with the Young Writers Festival?

I saw a call out for the guest curator and I was like ‘do I have enough experience for this?’ I kind of just reached out and was like, ‘Hello? Can I apply?’

This is kind of the perfect thing that I would always love to do because I'm a big fan of facilitating space and curating and things like that. I'm really excited to be a part of it and to take a step back and put other people on the stage and give space for them to do these amazing things.

I think, especially for younger people, calling yourself a writer or voicing an ambition to be one, can be really intimidating…

It's totally scary. I still really move away from calling myself a writer. Even a couple of weeks ago someone said to me, ‘You're a writer, right?’ And I was like, ‘No, no, I'm not’. She said, ‘But you write every day…’ and I'm like, shit, I guess I do.

I think the term writer is often quite difficult for people to align with because it conjures up this idea of constantly writing, or being the sort of person that you see in very traditional literature or as it was kind of taught in schools. But people are changing that perspective, and what I've been really big on with this festival was changing the perspectives of who we are. 

Writers can also be things like podcasters, they can be in film and screenwriters and comic book artists as well. We all write every day and that was the big reason I wanted to put on the medicine and creativity panel: I really wanted to show that writing is interdisciplinary and part of all of these STEM subjects as well. Being a good writer, a good storyteller and communicator is so important for things like engineering as well.

I feel like we need to have a wider understanding of what writing can encompass so that emerging writers who are writing comics and graphic novels are saying, ‘Actually, I'm a writer too’ – and can really be engaged with that form of art and storytelling.

Can you talk to me about some of the panels or events that you're most excited for?

One big one that I really love is the postering panel. Otepoti has a fantastic postering community. We actually did a piece for Rat World, issue five, about postering and I was really struck by the care of language and words that went into these posters. 

Postering has a really long political history as well, the language is so considered that you can walk past the poster and know exactly what someone is saying and the purpose of it. Like poster slogans for anarchist reasons are always really strong and they stick within your head. Like the Save Elam Art Library: all of those posters were really strong and, and you have a look at them and think ‘holy shit’ – they had this power to them. It's such a wonderful medium to show that writing is everywhere and it's for everyone. 

Another one that I'm excited by is the comics panel. Comics have often been seen as a non-literary form of writing and haven't really been part of writing festivals traditionally. I think it's really important to showcase comics as a really important written medium. They’re also really great for educational purposes - for getting people to get really engaged with reading and writing.

The podcasting panel will also be fantastic too. Podcasting is in a real boom at the moment and it is a form of writing. People don't think that all of these things have writing as their core background. I really want to show that writing is all around us and that storytelling is everywhere – it's a core part of our everyday.

What do you see as some of the challenges that face young creatives in New Zealand at the moment?

A really big one is breaking past that glass ceiling, emerging and not feeling kind of like an imposter. Feeling that you are professionally an artist and a writer. I think a big part of that is having more collaboration and community. Being able to talk to people and other writers about these feelings. 

That's a big part of this festival as well, the community focus. What I've noticed in the last year with Rat World is how much we crave collaboration and how it's so important for creatives. It's so easy to just get stuck in your head and feel like you don't know where opportunities are or you don't know who to connect with as a young emerging creative.

When you're together in a group and when you're together with other people, you can share those opportunities, you can make connections and that's just so important. That's kind of the real core of it all is creating community around creativity and arts.

I think there's sometimes an over emphasis on writing needing to have commercial viability. 

That's the other reason I was really interested in putting on the medicine panel, because I think it doesn't negate your writing to also be doing a day job or to be working in something else. You can be both simultaneously. I think there's this real fear of feeling like you're giving up a side of yourself in order to do a job, to be stable. In this day and age, it's kind of common knowledge that it's hard to be solely a writer, it's hard to be creative full time.

Who are some of the young writers in New Zealand that you're particularly in awe of?

I really love Jazmine Mary's new album Dog. I think the lyricism that they've put into it is just so beautiful and nostalgic. When I listen to the album, I just get so lost in the words and the way that the word is gonna pump out and create this whole scene.

I think Isla Huia's new book, Talia, is just phenomenal. We did an interview with Isla for the upcoming Rat World issue six, and I was reading through her answers and she's always really aware of where the words are on the page and the way that they look and the form of words. I think that's so cool. I'm always really interested in how people play with form and content as well.

I'm really excited about Ned Wenlock's just published graphic novel called Tsunami. When I read through it, I was like, oh, this is what we need for graphic novels in New Zealand. It was just so striking and so aware of the kind of childhood we have in New Zealand and the context of growing up here and kind of the oddness of being 12 and how you feel so confident about yourself, but you're also just unaware of the whole world around you. I actually read it like three times in one day because it struck me so much and I really liked Ned's really simplistic style of, of comic and cartoon in this and, and I thought the way that he did conversation was really, really cool.

There's just so much amazing writing coming out at the moment. I'm always looking at what's there because I think New Zealand is such an exciting place creatively. We're always looking towards other places like New York and London and places like that. But I think we have so much creative breadth and strength here, it's awesome that we're fostering it here.

Do you think we are doing enough to foster that talent?

We're getting better at it. Obviously, there are difficulties with funding and cutting of arts departments at universities which is very sucky. But I think when those sorts of things happen, the grassroots community bands together to give each other support. I'm hoping that our voices can kind of penetrate this barrier. We have people moving into arts management positions that are really awesome, like Nathan Joe being creative director of Auckland Pride and Cat Ruka as executive director of Basement Theatre.

I did this interview with Hannah Tasker-Poland recently who referenced that as well - things are shit, but they're getting better and we're moving towards a more accessible and stronger space. It’ll take time but things are changing and that's always good, you know, we can feel change. I've seen so many cool things come out of the woodwork like Rogue, and the MaeSteal Collective did such a fantastic New Zealand Fashion Week show.

Zine Fest was absolutely booming this year and to see people getting excited about the work that other people are creating and supporting collectives and other artists is really exciting.

I think that also motivates or encourages people to have a go themselves. The arts and writing has always been a really exclusive space, but we're all working together to make it more open and to make it more accessible for younger and emerging creatives.