May 2014: Working at Te Papa

I’ve been working as a writer at Te Papa for ten years, and I’m finishing at the end of May. Working at Te Papa teaches you a huge amount. Mostly I’ve worked as an exhibition writer, so you learn a lot about whatever exhibition you’re working on, but it’s also taught me a lot about writing clear concise English – why use 500 words when 100 will do just as well! I worked with three fine head writers there – Michael Keith, Liz Grant and Frith Williams. Right from the start Michael taught me that ‘good enough’ is never good enough. There’s been a rigorousness about the writing process at Te Papa that I respect very much.