Flash Frontier

Interview: Richard Sewell, Space Academy

Interviews and Features

Space Academy has hosted the last 3 National Flash Fiction Day events in Christchurch. We spoke to co-owner Richard Sewell about their support of literature.

Flash Frontier: In addition to NFFD, you regularly host Catalyst open mic nights, WORD Christchurch Festival events, and poetry slams. Why does Space Academy attract so many literary events?

Richard Sewell: For one, we enjoy supporting/attending them and also it seems that people like doing them here. We think they work well in the space and as we’ve slowly got better set up it’s (hopefully) more enjoyable to attend (and host) events here.

FF: Space Academy shares it’s space with two other businesses. How did such a unique enterprise come into being?

RS: Basically we got the lease on a warehouse (which we thought was massive at the time) and knew other people who wanted to do fun stuff and found ways to fit them in together.

FF: You also put on a wide range of other events, from bands to nostalgic movie nights. How does the idea of community contribute to the way you run the space?

RS: Cause we’re here every night we like it to be diverse for ourselves and hope it means that someone could come any night and be pleasantly surprised by something interesting.

We didn’t set out to be an event space but there seems to be a desire for a safe/accessible space (with good beers) for people to put on cool events. Works for us!

Thanks Space Academy for your support of National Flash Fiction Day!

Upcoming literary events include:

Catalyst Poetry Open Mic – First Wednesday every month, 7:00 PM

Christchurch Poetry Slam 2018 – Wednesday August 29, 7:00 PM

WORD Christchurch Festival: Comfortable in Your Skin – Friday August 31, 6:00 PM

Share this:

You may also like