Vana Manasiadis

Tēnā koe e te whānau

I teach Creative Writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels at UC and actively explore the unique teaching and learning practices of the creative writing space in my academic inquiry.  I have been exploring the experiences of neurodivergent creative writing students most recently, as well as away-from-classroom creative practice and provocation.

As a second generation Greek kiwi I am particularly interested in 'third culture' and 'third space' ideas as they relate to creativity and art-making, and I am particularly interested in

-the generative and radical empathy capacities of the creative process

-the materiality of the creative artefact, or text, and its ‘mattering’ in space

-the participatory, affective and anti-hierarchical nature of creative exchange

I approach creative practice as play and inquiry, and in my own mahi I have especially been interested in the lyric subjective and elegy, the epic collective and myth-making, hybrid and experimental forms, translanguage and literary translation.

 My work has been published in literary journals and anthologies in Aotearoa, Australia, US, Italy and Greece, and I have published two collections of hybrid poetry, edited two chapbook anthologies of poetry, and translated contemporary Greek poetry into [New Zealand] English in Aotearoa. The Greek translation of my most recent book 'The Grief Almanac: A Sequel' is forthcoming from Monocle Athens.

Selected Publications

-                                          Landfall                                       

-                                          Landfall

• 'Seeing the Feedback for the Words: Reflecting on Feedback for Neurodivergent Students' (2025). In McCormack, L (Ed.), Evolving Strategies for Writing Feedback on Creative Manuscripts: A Multi-Genre Pedagogy Guide. Routledge.
• 'When you land in Te Whanganui-a-Tara' (2025) In Elvy, M. & Piahana-Wong, K. (Eds.), Poto | Short, Massey University Press.
• ‘Παράδοση | Surrender’ (2025) In Elvy, M. & Rapatahana, V (Eds.), He Moana o Reo | An Ocean of Languages, The Cuba Press.
• 'Medicine' (2024) In Fleming, J, Wilkinson, J (Eds.), Rabbit 39: Mutiny. RMIT Melbourne.
• ‘If we give up flying it doesn’t mean we can’t speak to each other as if countries or scan our genomic sequences for travel to the flats’ (2023) In Elvy, M & Ihimaera, W (Eds.), A Kind of Shelter Whakaruru-taha, Massey University Press.
• 'Hybrid', 'Extinction', 'Stomach' (2022) in Slaughter, T. (Ed.) Poetry NZ Yearbook 2022. Massey University Press.
• ‘Υπάρχουν αρνητικές μορφές ευτυχίας’ (2021). In Sonzogni, M & Smith, T (Eds.), More Favourable Waters: Aotearoa Poets Respond to Dante’s Purgatory. The Cuba Press.
• ‘Στρώματα αήττητων σωμάτων’ (2020) trans. Kallergi, L. In Iliopoulou, K (Ed.), Diaspora. Φάρμακο
• 'Having a few beers with my mate' (2020) in Chris Tse (Ed.) The Friday Poem. The Spinoff.
• Manasiadis, V. (2019) The Grief Almanac: A Sequel. Wellington, New Zealand. Seraph Press.
• ‘A Hook for a Tale’ (2019) In Green, P (Ed.), Wild Honey: Reading New Zealand Women’s Poetry. Massey University Press.
• Manasiadis, V. & Rakuraku, M (2018) Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women Poets in Translation. Seraph Press.
• 'Lexicon found inbetween', 'The sharing of atoms is the nature of things', 'Endnotes', 'Study. Of spaces and of filling them', 'Blueprint for an essay on Houses' (2017) in Tierney, O. (Ed.), Jacket2, University of Pennsyvania 
• Manasiadis, V. (2016) Ναυάγια/Καταφύγια: Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six contemporary Greek Poets. Seraph Press.
• ‘Hectic Hector’ (2014) In Harvey, S., Norcliffe, N & Ricketts, H (Eds.), Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page. Random House.
• Manasiadis, V. (2009) Ithaca Island Bay Leaves: A Mythistorima. Seraph Press.