Tena Koutou, Talofa Lava, Fakaalofa lahi atu, Kia Orana, Malo e lelei,
Taloha ni, Ni Sa Bula, Greetings to all

Pacific peoples have always navigated our Vaka [waka] or canoes by the brilliant stars in the night skies and by our shared talkstories that root us back to our whakapapa, our origins but also take us forward when new stories burst out, like stars, from our souls.

At the inaugural PEN Asia and Pacific Writer’s Conference, held in Melbourne, November, 2005, I was one of three keynote speakers alongside Aboriginal author Alexis Wright and Kirpal Singh. This was an incredibly exciting and electric conference, directed with skill and deep humanity by Berni Janssen, PEN and all their helpers.Tales of torture and threats endured by many of the Asian authors present gave a wider perspective to the concept of writing for survival. We acted as witnesses to the wider world and none of the writers there will ever forget this shared time together, nor the many debates over aspects of writing, interpretation and translation over our many cultural borders. There were many more Asian than indigenous Pacific authors present and this was addressed at the conference and a commitment was made to better balancing at the next conference and through the Asia andPacific Writer’s website. Both Mohit Prasad, director of the Pacific Writer’s Forum at the University of the South Pacific and I agreed to work towards more indigenous Pacific editions and also encouraging more Pacific writers to submit their work. I promised Berni Janssen I would edit an edition of indigenous Pacific writing early in 2008 after my global touring schedule ended. Initially, the aim was to dedicate the entire website edition to new writing by indigenous Pacific authors from Aotearoa-New Zealand, to focus on one island region to see what we could produce. However, in between the conference and this edition, two major anthologies of Pacific Writing have emerged, Niu Voices and Writing the Pacific. There are also many e-publications that now welcome Pacific authors, such as Dreadlocks [Pacific Writing Forum], Trout, Tinfish, Snorkel and Oban, to name a few. At the last Frankfurt Bookfair I attended, publishers were excited about the progress of Pacific writing and wanting to see more work published and available for translation. While it is never easy to crack this market and usually authors have to win book awards before doing so, there is now a growing awareness of our work globally. The world is our oyster.

I am utterly delighted to report that so many publications and e-publications have been focusing on Pacific writing that most of the authors approached had run out of new work available. What did come in was from some terrific and well-known authors and also some relatively new ones – a good balance. But only enough for a small novella size edition. I consulted my colleagues for advice and they came back with the suggestion that I should include material from a new work commissioned from Global Dialogues Press focusing on Pacific Talkstory and its reception globally, using some of my own indigenous novels and texts being taught in universities overseas as a starting off point for both academics and students from a wide multicultual base to respond to the notion of Pacific Talkstory. I was reluctant to do this as the focus was on my books and had to be convinced it was relevant and inspiring for others to see such in depth responses to Pacific Talkstory globally. That it was the journey of the Talkstory that mattered and the depth of response to using this tool globally that was relevant. Indeed, that was the heart of the experience and empowering students to write their responses and publishing their voices was the radical nature of this experiment. I’d just returned from a Canadian-UK book tour, focused around Pacific Talkstory, and it seemed relevant to include this here, since Global Dialogues were gathering the material for a book anyway.

Vaka Moana: Navigation by Talkstory is in two parts. The first features recent writing from indigenous Pacific authors based in Aotearoa and the second a journey where Pacific Talkstory goes global. (Part 2, Pacific Talkstory Goes Global will be uploaded by March 2008) I hope that this will inspire academics and writers globally to invite more Pacific authors to contribute to Pacific and other literary publications and also see the unique perspectives we can offer at conferences and workshops based around our own writing collectively and where we get a chance to interact with other writers and students.

Pacific peoples have always navigated our Vaka [waka] or canoes by the brilliant stars in the night skies and by our shared talkstories that root us back to our whakapapa, our origins but also take us forward when new stories burst out, like stars, from our souls.

I invite you all to join us on this vaka and enjoy navigation by talkstory.

Dr. Cathie Dunsford, Mohala, Tawharanui, Aotearoa.