Anthony Lapwood

Language is indeed a virus and corporate-ese has infected every sphere of society, spilling from offices into politics, sports, the news, even the arts. Withering nuance, shrinking depth, starving variety. I too have found myself weakened by this plague, covering my mouth in shame and shock.

Language is indeed a virus and corporate-ese has infected every sphere of society, spilling from offices into politics, sports, the news, even the arts. Withering nuance, shrinking depth, starving variety. I too have found myself weakened by this plague, covering my mouth in shame and shock.

Issue 1 — The Art Lens The Art Lens

The Art Lens is a new youth-led journal designed to support young (under 25) writers in Aotearoa by providing a platform to publish, promote, and discuss their work.

Human rights protections for transgender Kiwis not a priority – Govt The Law Commission's recommendations to explicitly bar housing and hiring discrimination against transgender and intersex people have been sidelined.

"The Law Commission said the status quo wasn’t strong enough... The practical effect of these changes would have been to confirm that these groups have protection from discrimination in housing, hiring and access to goods and services."

#NZpol

newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/25/h...

He uses targets as a convenient way to shift blame. Just a hack manager who makes bad rules then tells everyone else they're the problem.

Thank you! Hope others agree 😅

Thank you! 😁

Thanks Helen!

Damien and Ruby: e kore rawa e mutu aku mihi ki a kōrua. Your mahi at Āporo Press continues to show that with vision, grit, and the right partnerships, more writing from the fringes can break through to the light.

Call it a mordant, literary crime novel about love, family, nostalgia, and obsession.

#TheCarnivoreDiaries #pukapuka #NZbooks

Gay scriptwriter Lewis returns to the home he once fled. His parents have recently separated, and are now missing. Lewis tries to unravel the tangled mysteries, while looking after Doggo the family Labrador. We witness a darkening world through his recordings and those of his luckless mum and dad 🐶📒

TITLE PAGE: The Carnivore Diaries By Anthony Lapwood about 86,000 words “Now the truth of the story was this:” — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote “It seemed like a nice neighbourhood to have bad habits in.” — Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep “Love is an open wound.” — Charles Brasch, “Into the Hands of Men” “I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times.” — Robert Bloch, Psycho

Photo of a golden Labrador lying on green grass and smiling with an open mouth into the camera.

Thrilled to share some big news: my next book, The Carnivore Diaries, will be published later this year with Āporo Press 🍎

#TheCarnivoreDiaries #pukapuka #NZbooks

@damienlevi.bsky.social

"It would be funny if it weren’t so depressing. Because while politicians are dragging their feet, hoping someone else will be in charge by the time New Zealand runs out of time and has to start making difficult decisions, climate change is already here."

#NZpol #climatechange

life ending and infrastructure destroying floods are now an annual occurrence in new zealand. there is no political recognition of this new reality, and thus there is no resourcing for its prevention. we are not ready

Short story: Crossed with the cat by Anthony Lapwood This year's theme in our summer collection of short stories is distraction.

"Crossed With the Cat" is now available to read on the NZ Listener website.

PS: I like the choice of image for the story. Unexpected but quite appropriate.

www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener...

DELIGHTED to be included as a summer fiction writer for NZ Listener 🥳🙏 A wonderful way to start 2026, and in such fine company, esp @antzlapwood.bsky.social 🥂🥰

Thank you. I enjoyed your story 🐦‍⬛

For those who've been following along at home, you may recognise some medical details relating to our own beloved cat... It's worth noting these are the only specifics in the story taken from life.

RIP Virginia, we miss you.

Magazine spread featuring the text of "Crossed with the cat" by Anthony Lapwood, with a supporting image of a blow torch flame.

Portion of magazine spread of "Crossed with the cat" by Anthony Lapwood.

Photo of a tabby cat (Virginia) at the vet, with bandaged paw and IV drip line.

Photo of a tabby cat (Virginia) in a cat box with head hanging out the doorway hole.

Chuffed to have a new short story, "Crossed With the Cat", out via NZ Listener 😺

The title comes from a Mark Twain quote: "If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat."

Huge congratulations to our Pushcart Prize 2026 nominees! 🎉 We’re cheering loudly and wishing you all the luck.

www.takahe.org.nz/nominations/

2/2

My year in books (apologies for the awkward cutoffs). Loved many, disliked very few. Hope you found plenty of great reading too 📚💚 1/2

Photograph of three books: Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield; Animalia, by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo; The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman.

The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman. A terrific collection of fiction which brings together writers of various backgrounds and writing of various genres, as proof of the virtues of the great melting pot and proof, I hope, that you are better to judge the soul of a nation by its artists than by its politicians.

Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield. A beautifully haunting novel about what happens when the person you love goes away and then comes back different. It's a genuine horror story and a tender examination of a failing marriage (which just happens to be a queer one).

Animalia, by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo (translated from the French by Frank Wynne). A blindingly good novel about several generations of owners of a piggery. It elevates protest to an art form, using the tools of fiction to palpably render the problems and complications of its subject on the page. Some of the best prose you'll ever read.

Three #pukapuka recs from me, in the annual @modernletters.bsky.social newsletter:

👁️‍🗨️ The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman.

🌊 Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield.

🐷 Animalia, by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo (translated from the French by Frank Wynne).

‘It says almost nothing about how the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS) will contribute, despite the fact that the strategy’s objectives cannot be met without them.’

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Given the decision on puberty blockers, I do want to note an objective fact that I think has been lost:

Eight MPs voted to keep conversion practices legal.

All were National MPs.

*Every single one* of the five who remained in Parliament after the 2023 election was given a Ministerial warrant.

I won a book that I have been meaning to read, so yay for me manifesting that shit.

Congrats! You are the winner of the prize draw! Please DM me your details and I'll get your pukapuka in the post. Happy reading! 🎉📖🎉

Cover of Home Theatre with Xmas themes cheaply added: a Santa hat stuck on a man standing in an apartment window, a red nose and reindeer antlers stuck on a glowing horse in the window above.

Xmas is just around the corner... So I'm doing a book giveaway!

Win a copy of my prize-winning story collection Home Theatre 🏠🎭

Simply reply below with a good book you read this year.

Draw closes 5pm NZST Sunday 30 November.

#pukapuka @thwupbooks.bsky.social