The Wellington Writers Walk is made up of a series of 24 quotations from New Zealand writers, including poets, novelists, and playwrights. The quotations are placed along the Wellington waterfront, from Kumutoto Stream to Oriental Bay, and were installed to honour and celebrate the lives and works of the writers, all of whom had (or have) some connection to Wellington. The sculptures take several different forms: contemporary concrete plaques, designed by Catherine Griffiths; inlaid metal text on wooden 'benchmarks', designed by Fiona Christeller, and the most recent sculpture, with a backlit metal plaque sitting on a patterned concrete cylindrical base, designed by David Hakaraia.
History The Wellington Writers Walk began as a project of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc.) Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa under the inaugural committee of Eirlys Hunter (convenor), Robin Fleming, Dame Fiona Kidman, Barbara Murison, Ann Packer, Susan Pearce, Judy Siers and Joy Tonks. The committee later comprised Rosemary Wildblood (convenor), Robyn Cooper, Sarah Gaitanos, Michael Keith and Barbara Murison.
The first series of 11 concrete plaques were designed by internationally renowned typographer Catherine Griffiths, with each plaque having an individual sponsor. The Writers Walk was opened during New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week, part of the International Festival of the Arts, on 11 March 2002. Stage Two of the Walk was launched on 8 May 2004. Catherine Griffiths was awarded the Terry Stringer Award at the BEST Design Awards in 2002 for her work on the sculptures.
The quotations for Jack Lasenby, Joy Cowley, James McNeish and Elizabeth Knox were unveiled by the then patron, Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, in a ceremony on the waterfront on 20 March 2013. These were designed by award-winning Wellington architect Fiona Christeller.
The most recent sculpture, and the first in te reo Māori, was unveiled on 25 June 2026. It features the text “He Karakia mō Puanga mā Matariki”, composed by Ben Ngaia (Te Āti Awa), and was designed by David Hakaraia (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Paoa) with landscape design by Tama Whiting (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui).
The Writers Walk attracts a lot of attention from locals as well as visitors, tourists, bloggers and photographers, and is also a popular expedition for school groups.
Past Patrons of the Wellington Writers Walk have included Dame Silvia Cartwright, Sir Anand Satyanand, Sir Jerry Mateparae and Lady Janine Mateparae and Dame Patsy Reddy.
Events In 2008, the Wellington Writers Walk committee held the Wellington Sonnet Competition, sponsored by New Zealand Post, which attracted over 200 entries. The competition was judged by Harry Ricketts and won by Michele Amas, with Saradha Koirala and Richard Reeve in second and third place respectively.
In 2012, New Zealand was Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the Wellington Writers Walk played a starring role, with large decals of the quotations appearing alongside the River Main in Frankfurt. It was launched there in September 2012 by New Zealand writers Hamish Clayton and Tina Makereti, both in residence at Frankfurt's Weltkulturen Museum.
The Writers Walk featured in a 2015 Spectrum documentary when presenter Jack Perkins explored part of the walk with Rosemary Wildblood, Barbara Murison and Philippa Werry.
In 2017, a project for the Wai-Te-Ata Press at Victoria University of Wellington, called the Literary Atlas of Wellington, was undertaken to create an augmented reality mobile application based on the Wellington Writers Walk.
List
PlaqueWriterDatesQuotationSourceLocationElizabeth Knoxb. 1959The evening light concentrated, till the city and the topped-up trembling horizon beyond
Pencarrow Head would begin to look like
a seaport in someone's lost paradise.From 'Provenance' in The Love School
(Victoria University Press, 2008)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%231/@-41.2828242,174.7782602,18z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38af4843440b07:0xe2c62ecfc5693f00!8m2!3d-41.2828256!4d174.779034Eileen Duggan1894-1972My quiet morning hill Stands like an altar drawn
Whereon hushed hands shall lay
The shining pyx of dawn.
With penitence and stir,
And drowsy flurry by,
The wind, a shamefaced serving-boy
Comes running up the sky.'The Acolyte' in Selected Poems: Eileen Duggan,
ed. Peter Whiteford
(Victoria University Press, 1994)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%232/@-41.2839725,174.7780358,18z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38afe4ff57ea8d:0x6733410e451a82c5!8m2!3d-41.2839725!4d174.7791301Denis Glover1912-1980The harbour is an ironing board; Flat iron tugs dash smoothing toward
Any shirt of a ship, any pillowslip
Of a freighter they decree Must be ironed flat as washing from the sea.From 'Wellington Harbour is a Laundry' in Come High Water
(Dunmore Press, 1977)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%233/@-41.2872816,174.7772092,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38afb69d22f1ef:0x8ee95667be0ad78f!8m2!3d-41.2872857!4d174.7793979Michael King1945-2004I baited my line, watched it sink, and waited with exquisite anticipation for the pecking of mullet,
the sucking of trevally, or - best of all - the sudden
pull of kahawai or kingfish.From Being Pakeha Now (Penguin Books, 1999)https://www.google.com/maps/search/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%234/@-41.2872735,174.7772092,17z/data=!3m1!4b1Louis Johnson1924-1988From Brooklyn hill, ours is a doll-size city A formal structure of handpicked squares and bricks
Apprehensible as a child’s construction
Signifying community.From 'Last View of Wellington' in Fires and Patterns
(The Jacaranda Press, 1975)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%235/@-41.2879898,174.7772166,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38af241aa73ceb:0x203f65349b01e111!8m2!3d-41.2879939!4d174.7794053Pat Lawlor1893- 1979And now, as I grow in years, I feel at times like an old
violin played on by a master
hand. You, dear city, are
the maestro drawing the bow
over the sensibilities of my
mind, echoing the music
of my days.From Old Wellington Days (Whitcombe & Tombs, 1959)https://www.google.com/maps/search/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%236/@-41.2879817,174.7772166,17z/data=!3m1!4b1Lauris Edmond1924-2000It’s true you can’t live here by chance, you have to do and be, not simply watch
or even describe. This is the city of action,
the world headquarters of the verb –From 'The Active Voice' in Scenes from a Small City
(Daphne Brasell Associates Press, 1994)https://www.google.com/maps/search/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%237/@-41.2879736,174.7772166,17z/data=!3m1!4b1Vincent O'Sullivanb. 1937Then it’s Wellington we’re coming to! It’s time, she says, it’s time surely
for us to change lanes, change tongues, they speak so differently down here.From 'Driving South with Lucy to the Big Blue Hills' in Seeing You Asked
(Victoria University Press, 1998)https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2888522,174.7787781,3a,90y,296.49h,86.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJJEEaRy_gnvrLbvg9ycqKQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656Maurice Geeb. 1931Then out of the tunnel and Wellington burst like a bomb.
It opened like a flower, was
lit up like a room, explained
itself exactly, became the
capital.From Going West (Faber and Faber, 1992)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%239/@-41.2876527,174.7747313,16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38af14faec583b:0x8f95516b4fc31200!8m2!3d-41.288232!4d174.7795063Patricia Graceb. 1937I love this city, the hills, the harbour, the wind that blasts through it. I love
the life and pulse and activity, and the
warm decrepitude ... there’s always an edge
here that one must walk which is sharp
and precarious, requiring vigilance.From Cousins (Penguin Books, 1992)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%2310/@-41.2886204,174.7777457,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38afe3b907f2ed:0xa3f45f618b0a8b35!8m2!3d-41.2886245!4d174.7799344Jack Lasenby1931-2019I want to live among people who believe in truth and freedom...I want to discuss ideas... I want books...From The Conjurer (Oxford University Press, 1992)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%2311/@-41.2896156,174.7777925,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xafaefeb47a23c55b!8m2!3d-41.2896197!4d174.7799812Bill Manhireb. 1946I live at the edge of the universe,
like everybody else.From 'Milky Way Bar' in Milky Way Bar
(Victoria University Press, 1991)https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2896284,174.7806273,3a,15y,243.93h,61.7t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sn_NVtqibXKt9jVTW1YSDcQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dn_NVtqibXKt9jVTW1YSDcQ%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D175.58965%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656Sam Huntb. 1946Tall buildings no bigger than blocks on the floor, Wellington afloat on the harbour haze ...
You think of how most men spend their days
In offices as cramped as elevators –From 'Letter to Jerusalem 2' in Collected Poems 1963 - 1980
(Penguin Books, 1980)No good quality Google Maps link. Imagine this artwork is Just to the left, across the "diving board" from the previous (Bill Manhire) link.Bruce Mason1921-1982I ask that not only my city, but all, give themselves
to the essence of our cult
– the ritual assembly of an
interested coterie in a space
where magic can be made
and miracles occur.From Theatre in 1981: Omens and Portents unpublished ms, Bruce Mason papers,
JC Beaglehole Room,
Victoria University of WellingtonIn front of Circa Theatre, near Te Papa https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2901499,174.7808488,3a,74.7y,243.82h,86.03t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8J9u6MB_SmkgNuLmaCk5vQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656Alistair Te Ariki Campbell1925-2009Blue rain from a clear sky. Our world a cube of sunlight –
but to the south
the violet admonition
of thunder.From 'Blue Rain' in The Dark Lord of Savaiki: Collected Poems
(Hazard Press, 2003)https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.289743,174.7806881,3a,52.3y,157.13h,79.78t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sMLIVNkRpOk9ecEpXdW0Mxg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656Ben Ngaia1977–He Karakia mō Puanga mā MatarikiiText was gifted to Wellington Writers Walk by Te Wharewaka o PōnekeRobin Hyde1906-1939Yet I think, having used my words as the kings used gold, Ere we came by the rustling jest of the paper kings,
I who am overbold will be steadily bold,
In the counted tale of things.From 'Words' in Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde,
ed. Michele Leggott
(Auckland University Press, 2003)https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2896105,174.7814115,3a,15.1y,188.51h,86.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFQEnTAbixV7aMAv10jKy8Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656James K. Baxter1926-1972I saw the Maori Jesus walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees.
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelt of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.From 'The Maori Jesus' in Collected Poems of James K Baxter,
ed. J E Weir
(Oxford University Press, 2003)https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2894922,174.7825234,3a,40.9y,216.75h,96.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sE78bVHG9-vzIABFIbMRo-g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656Katherine Mansfield1888-1923Their heads bent, their legs just touching, they
stride like one eager
person through the town,
down the asphalt zigzag
where the fennel grows
wild ... the wind is so
strong that they have
to fight their way
through it, rocking like
two old drunkards.From 'The Wind Blows' in Bliss and Other Stories
(Penguin Books, 2001)https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wellington+Writer's+Walk+%2318/@-41.2886123,174.7777457,17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d38af3df6c6e91d:0xbcbc0b2e372e1649!8m2!3d-41.2893614!4d174.7830566 https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.289475,174.7830662,3a,15.3y,4.59h,83.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swNW92B2EHJc_Y5HLwAtDLw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 (Image)Joy Cowleyb. 1936Light dances on hills and office windows and shakes its skirts over the harbour
in a wild fandango that attracts