Starling

16/09/2025

Whaitiri Tua-Warbrick (), ‘Hinetītama’
Starling Issue 20
Winter 2025

14/09/2025

Ruby Solly (), ‘Rakatahi-Tū’
Starling Issue 9
Summer 2020

12/09/2025

Alexandra Cherian (), ‘Wounds of Art’
Starling Issue 20
Winter 2025

11/09/2025

Submissions for the 21st issue of Starling close in four weeks on October 10!

If you’re a NZ writer under 25, send us your best poetry, prose, and anything in-between by midnight on deadline day - full submission guidelines can be found at starlingmag.com/submissions.

09/09/2025

Starling Issue 20 Wellington Launch Party
Book Hound
7 September 2025
Readers: Aroha Witinitara, June Ha, Githara Gunawardena, Kermit Winona, Alexandra Cherian, Zia Ravenscroft, Joshua Toumu’a and Rachel Lockwood.

06/09/2025

Aroha Witinitara, ‘Passing’
Starling Issue 20
Winter 2025

30/08/2025

The last reader for our Issue 20 online launch party is the great Loretta Riach, coming to us from Finland with their new poem 'Labora et Amare'!

This is one of three new poems from Loretta in Issue 20 of Starling, and they are also our cover artist for the issue! Loretta is one of our longtime favourites, and this is their last time appearing in Starling before they turn 25 - we're incredibly grateful to them for all of the incredible poetry of theirs we've had a chance to publish in the journal!

Loretta Riach is a Pākehā artist and writer from Aotearoa, living in Naarm. Much of their work is concerned with landscape, solidarity, and ghosts, but they also like to write love poems. This writing can be found in previous issues of Starling, as well as publications including Sick Leave, Sweet Mammalian, The Spinoff, Min-a-rets, Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems, and Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook.

30/08/2025

Reading next is longtime Starling favourite Xiaole Zhan 詹小乐 with 'The sky rained with millet and the ghosts wailed in the night', one of two poems featured in our new issue: https://youtu.be/7SsE6l7e7RA

Xiaole Zhan 詹小乐 is a Chinese-Aotearoa writer and composer based in Naarm. Their work is featured in AUP New Poets 11 (Auckland University Press), and they are the 2024 Kat Muscat Fellow, as well as the winner of the 2023 Kill Your Darlings Non-Fiction Prize. In Chinese, their name means ‘Little Happy’ but can also be read as ‘Little Music’.

You can read both of Xiaole's new poems in Issue 20 here: https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/xiaole-zhan

'The sky rained with millet and the ghosts wailed in the night' by Xiaole Zhan 詹小乐, from Starling Issue 20, Winter 2025 Read this poem at https://www.starlin...

30/08/2025

Our next reader is longtime Starling favourite Cadence Chung, returning to the journal with her new poem 'Christabel' (after Coleridge): https://youtu.be/xqhEOQY2juc

Cadence is a poet, mezzo-soprano, and composer, currently studying at the New Zealand School of Music. She has released three books: anomalia (Tender Press, 2022), Mythos: An Audio-Visual Anthology of Art by Young New Zealanders (ed.) (Wai-te-Ata Press, 2024), and Mad Diva (Otago University Press, 2025). She also performs as a classical singer, presents on RNZ Concert, and edits Symposia Magazine and the New Zealand Poetry Society's quarterly magazine, a fine line.

You can read Cadence's new poem in Issue 20 here: https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/cadence-chung . She is also featured in our 10-year reflections section of the issue, looking back at one her first poems published in Starling Issue 8(!): https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/twenty-reflections

'Christabel (after Coleridge)' by Cadence Chung, from Starling Issue 20, Winter 2025Read this poem at https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/cadence-chung

29/08/2025

Mōrena - it's our second-to-last day of video readings from the new issue of Starling! And reading first is the great Aroha Witinitara, with their two new poems featured in Issue 20 - 'Passing' and 'Wētā': https://youtu.be/ZfSQeVD0Sp0

As Aroha explains in the video, 'Passing' was written after essa may ranapiri's 'passing as non-binary' (which originally appeared in Starling Issue 6), and as a part of the Ruri Rongoā workshops run by Hinemoana Baker for takatāpui poets.

You can read Aroha's new poems in the issue here: https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/aroha-witinitara, and read them talking in more depth about the writing of 'Passing' here: https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/twenty-reflections

'Passing' and 'Wētā' by Aroha Witinitara, from Starling Issue 20, Winter 2025 Read these poems at https://www.starlingmag.com/issue-20/aroha-witinitara