Grace Teuila Taylor is a New Zealand spoken word poet, writer, performer and director of Samoan and

Palagi Pālagi (pronounced – ''singular'' ) or papālagi (''plural'') is a term in Samoan culture of uncertain meaning, sometimes used to describe foreigners. Tent and Geraghty (2001) comment that the origin of the Western Polynesian ''Papālagi~Pāla ...

heritage. In 2008, Taylor was the recipient of the

Auckland Writers Festival Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki is the largest annual literary festival in Aotearoa New Zealand since 1999. It has about 200 public events each year featuring local and international writers as guests. History and staff The inaug ...

Poetry Idol Award. In 2012, she was given the World of Difference award from The Vodafone New Zealand Foundation. In 2014, she was awarded the Emerging Pacific Artist award at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards.

Biography

Taylor is of English and Samoan heritage. She was born in about 1984 in South Auckland and refers to herself as "Afakasi" which is a Samoan transliteration of halfcaste. She has an MA in Youth Development from Auckland University of Technology. In 2013, Taylor published her first collection of poetry, ''Afakasi Speaks.'' She has been published in literary journals including ''Hawai'i Review''. Taylor wrote and performed the play ''My Own Darling'', which has been performed in

South Auckland South Auckland is an imprecisely defined urban area of Auckland, New Zealand, with a young population, a relatively large Polynesian and Māori demographic, and lower incomes than other parts of Auckland. The name ''South Auckland'', though not ...

and broadcast on

Radio New Zealand Radio New Zealand ( mi, Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa), commonly known as Radio NZ or simply RNZ, is a New Zealand public-service radio broadcaster and Crown entity that was established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. It operates news and c ...

. Taylor has worked producing, mentoring and facilitating workshops and spoken word poetry programmes since 2007. She co-founded the South Auckland Poets Collective in 2008 and Niu Navigations in 2013 with

Daren Kamali Daren (DK) Kamali (born 1975) is a Fijian-born New Zealand poet, writer, musician, and teacher and museum curator. Education Kamali completed his Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing at Manukau Institute of Technology in New Zealand in 2014 Kam ...

. In 2011 she co-founded the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Slam which is now an annual event in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

. Taylor currently teaches creative writing and poetry at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Awards

* In 2014 Taylor received the Emerging Artist award at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards. * Taylor received the 2016 Auckland Mayoral Writers Grant to develop her new collection of poetry, ''City of Undone Darlings.'' * In 2008, Taylor won the

Poetry Idol award and received the 2012 Vodafone New Zealand Foundation World of Difference award.

References

External links

'afakasistory - Blog by Taylor

The power of words, talk at TEDxAuckland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Grace Living people Auckland University of Technology alumni University of Hawaiʻi faculty New Zealand fiction writers New Zealand women novelists New Zealand women short story writers New Zealand women poets Year of birth missing (living people)