Verb Wellington
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| Formation | 2014 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Wellington, New Zealand |
Director | Claire Mabey |
| Website | https://www.verbwellington.nz/ |
Verb Wellington is an organisation that since 2014 has run an annual literary festival in Wellington, New Zealand called Verb Writers and Readers Festival.[1] It was founded by Claire Mabey.[2] Part of the festival is an event called LitCrawl which is like a pub crawl, across many venues (20 in 2022).[2] In addition to the festival, Verb Wellington run other events; for example, it partnered with the British Council in 2023 to bring together Chris Tse (the New Zealand Poet Laureate) and Simon Armitage (the United Kingdom Poet Laureate) at an event called Does Literature Matter? at the National Library of New Zealand.[3][4]
Andrew Laking and Claire Mabey created the first Verb Wellington event in 2014.[5] Laking's background was as a musician and Mabey had been at the Tauranga Arts Festival and has a diploma in publishing from Whitireia Polytechnic. Mabey brought forward the concept of LitCrawl which grew into the bigger festival.[5][6] Verb Wellington works in partnership with the New Zealand Arts Festival every two years to deliver their literary festival programme.[6] Verb Wellington's festival and events were disrupted in 2020, like many, by COVID-19.[6]
Wellington Treasure Trust is a registered charity that supports Verb Wellington. Board members in 2023 were Emma Marr, Catherine Robertson, Branavan Gnanalingam, Andrew Laking and Claire Mabey.[7][8]
I think Wellington is a leading literary city, globally. When you look at the history of book production and writing here, it’s amazing. Patricia Grace, Bill Manhire, Elizabeth Knox. (Claire Mabey 2020)[6]
In 2023 the festival programmers are Rangimarie Sophie Jolley, Trinity Thompson-Browne, Damien Levi, Rosabel Tan and Chris Tse. Melanie Hamilton is the executive director. Claire Mabey has left to pursue writing.[9]