Writing Our Herstories

As the exhibition Modern Women: Flight of Time enters its final weeks at the Gallery at the start of 2025, we invite you to take part in a special exploration of women’s stories and the powerful legacies they leave. What are our journeys, our herstories, and how can we craft these as memoirs to keep or share for future generations?

This course is aimed to empower women to find their unique voices and writing styles. Acclaimed writer Maria de Jong offers strategies, tips and inspiration to help you begin your writing journey. Discover how energising and intriguing your own story can be and learn how to bring out its light and shadows in written form.

The first class will be slightly longer and includes a special tour of Modern Women: Flight of Time with the exhibition’s curator, Julia Waite. This class is open to all women and non-binary people.

About the tutor: 

Maria de Jong writes and edits memoirs, biographies, family and business histories. Since 2017 Maria has been tutoring memoir writing in fun, insightful, stimulating and interactive classes. She is passionate about preserving herstories and histories for future generations and has a special interest in the history of Aotearoa and the Pacific Islands. Maria has a Diploma in Journalism from the Auckland University of Technology, is a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors and in 2014 won Te Mahi Toi Award at the Ngā Kupu Ora / Māori Book Awards for Te Tohunga Auaha: Fred Graham, Creator of Forms.

Photo credits: Image 1 & 2 : Alexis Brown | Tutor's image: Geoff Dale