mentalhealth.org.nz > Media Grants > Past Fellows > Jessica Le Bas (creative)

Walking to Africa

Jessica being interviewed by Mike Gourley at the 2007 Showcase

The poet

Jessica Le Bas grew up in Auckland. With a family of seven and a working life that has included roles as diverse as truck driver, waitress, private secretary for a Cabinet Minister, consultant to the United Nations in a war zone and school teacher, Jessica has a lot of material to draw on for her creative writing.

She has an MA (Hons) from the University of Auckland and in 1997 she completed Owen Marshall's Fiction Writing Course at Aoraki Polytechnic.

Jessica's short stories and poems have won places in a number of competitions (see below) and her work has been published in literary magazines, newspapers and journals including the Listener, JAAM, Poetry NZ, Takahe, Sport, North & South, NZ Books, Trout and various anthologies.

Jessica's first poetry collection, Incognito, (AUP 2007) won the First Book of Poetry Award at the 2008 Montana Book Awards. A proficient performer, she often shares her work with audiences at writers' festivals and poetry readings around New Zealand.

She lives in Nelson where she teaches part-time in secondary school, and writes. Jessica is currently working on a third collection, The Circumference of Love, and preliminary work for a novel.

Examples of Jessica's work can be found online at some of the websites listed below.

The project

Jessica's media grant project was to develop a collection of poetry - Walking to Africa (her second book).

The project arose from an essay in poetry that explored mental health issues in adolescents. The media grant allowed time to further develop this work for public reading.

The finished collection forms a narrative providing insight and understanding into the journey a mother takes when the health of her child is compromised by illness. It's about a parent's experience of coming to terms with a whole new world - the world of mental health: diagnoses, care and treatment.

Jessica describes the event of an ordinary child, the numerous visits to doctors, the treatments that don't work and the people who suddenly have answers and their own stories to tell. She says, ""The challenge was keeping the narrative from being overly anecdotal and sentimental. It needed to be accessible and honest and still make an impression on readers' perceptions of mental illness."

Jessica hopes that people will 'see' the levels of trauma, care and resilience that adolescents and their families face and that it will help to break down their misconceptions about mental illness, and build a greater community of care and support.

"I'm excited to publish a collection of poetry that legitimises the nature of mental health continuum, as a part of what it is to be human, individual and different."

The strength of Jessica's poetry lies in it's ability to connect the reader not only with the experience being shared in the collection, but also with any experiences of their own - where a friend or family member has struggled with their health.

Walking to Africa is published by Auckland University Press and will be launched on 9 October 2009. To read more go to:http://web.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/aup/book/2009/lebas-walking-to-africa.cfm

If you are interested in talking to Jessica about her latest collection of poetry Walking to Africa (or any of her earlier work), she can be contacted through the media grants programme, email: info "at" mediagrants.org.nz, or her publishers, email: c.obrien "at" auckland.ac.nz .

Audio

Previous grants and awards

  • 2009: Creative NZ Grant for The Circumference of Love
  • 2008:Winner, 2008 Montana NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry Award for Incognito
    Winner, Best New Zealand Poems 2007, International Institute of Modern Letters for and I have something to expiate
  • 2007: Shortlisted for NZ Book Month The Six Pack 2
    Shortlisted for Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition
    2nd place, South Island Writers Association Short Story Competition
    Awarded inaugural New Zealand Mental Health Media Grant
  • 2005: Creative NZ grant to complete her first collection of poetry
    Shortlisted, Bronwyn Tate Short Story Competition
    Shortlisted (Random House) Home: Short Story Competition
    Winner, Bravado Poetry Competition for her poem Walking to Africa
  • 2004: Shortlisted, Landfall Essay Competition for her essay Visitors
  • 2003: Winner, NZ Poetry Society's International Poetry Competition for "and I have something to expiate."
    3rd place, South Island Writers Association Short Story Competition

Selection of previous work

Websites



Top Page last updated: 19 January 2011