Talk Wellington - Kōrero Shaping Wellington

Who’s behind it?

Behind the scenes of our original online presence was a team of nominally-paid folk – Team Kōrero Wellington. They did this mahi on top of regular jobs because they believe that the Wellington region’s people, powered by good information, are a positive force that makes our place better for everyone.

Having a team was key to Talk Wellington’s original reason for being. They produced and promulgated great urban content at a pace and volume where it had a chance of becoming part of ordinary people’s regular information diet.

Since April 2019, when we’ve had to call time on our proof of concept, Talk Wellington content has been mostly written and curated by convenor Isabella and the Talk Wellington interns, with occasional guest-posts and cross-posts.

Talk Wellington Interns

2021-2023: Grace Clark (she/they) is a writer, illustrator and comic artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. After completing a Master of Creative Writing Publishing and Editing from the University of Melbourne, Grace returned to Pōneke. Grace has written comics and illustrated for Voiceworks, Rat World, Frocks on Bikes and more. They have also contributed to the upcoming Bristle Annual which features Wellington’s comic artists. Their writings on decolonising design were featured in Asylum Journal. You can see recent work on Instagram @ranmyuu.

2020-21: Maddy McVie. She’s an urbanerd who likes to kōrero about cities and what makes them tick. These days you’ll mostly see her communicating and amplifying the evidence about transport and urban design, and working on programmes to help people experience our lovely city outside of a metal box. Also loves a chat about cell biology, sign language, crafting and more.

Who’s the post author called “Talk Welly” or “Kōrero Wellington”?

It could be anyone, and sometimes that’s the point.

The Wellington region is pretty small. Sadly it’s often “career limiting” to be communicating on issues which one knows stuff and in fields in which one works, even when that is only with information already in the public domain and only in the clear public good (Talk Wellington’s policy).

So where a post author is “Kōrero Wellington”, “Talk Wellington”, “Talk Welly” or another similar pseudonym, this is typically someone from the team, but sometimes guest posters who’d prefer their contributions to be anonymous.