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Meet The Team

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Kirsten Le Harivel 

Founder & co-organiser 

Kirsten Le Harivel is a writer, program
manager and founder of Writers Practice. She has curated creative writing programmes for professional and aspiring writers for the last ten years including the renowned Kāpiti Writers’ Retreat. Alongside Writers Practice she works at Toi MAHARA and looks after her young children. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Te Herenga
Waka | Victoria University of Wellington. Her poetry book  Shelter came out in 2021 with
The Cuba Press. She has short fiction and poetry published in a variety of local and international journals.

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Keryn Mells 

Co-organiser and partner in crime

Keryn Mells is a journalist, primary teacher,presenter and former adult educator who runs creative writing workshops for children. She has unfinished drafts in a range of genres including children’s fiction, memoir, creative non-fiction and short
stories - mostly started while doing papers at the IIML, Massey University and the Creative Hub. She lives in Te Horo Beach with a view of Tararua to the east and Rauoterangi Channel to the west. She bikes, grows vegetables, walks three dogs and rides her horse to make the most of the wonderful Kāpiti lifestyle. She has adult
children and hopes to finish writing
something when she grows up.

Policies

  • High quality learning: We host workshops, retreats and collaborative writing projects which add value to writers, develop our practice and push creative boundaries.

  • Connectedness: We create a learning environment which builds community and relationships among participants and teachers.

  • Accessibility: We encourage teaching writers to bring themselves, their processes and passions to the programmes and create a learning environment which supports participants to do the same.

  • Inclusion: We welcome writers and writing from all backgrounds and strive to provide surroundings which meet the needs of all participants. We do not tolerate racism, discrimination, hate-speech, bullying or harassment of any kind.

  • Sustainability: All of our programmes are funded through your contributions. This allows us to pay our teaching writers, venues, scholarships and coordinators for their expertise, time and energy.

  • Collectivity: We acknowledge the inequities that exist within our society and provide scholarships, volunteer opportunities, accessibility and other support to reduce barriers to participation.

  • Groundedness: We recognise the mana whenua on whose land we stand, the colonial history of our country and its present-day implications.

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