An invigorated newsroom, people’s literature, and (pretty) please go enrol to vote.

It’s been a fun couple of months in The Canterbury Memo virtual newsroom. 

As per usual after the release of an issue, I found myself back at my desk most nights, hunched over half-formed headlines, Radio New Zealand’s midnight bulletin murmuring grim budgetary updates about yet another public service cut while I tried to summon the next edition. Comforting stuff, and the perfect soundtrack for independent publishing in 2025 Aotearoa. 

Still, Issue 2 vanished from the magazine stand in record time, not bad for something stapled together on no budget after months of battling University bureaucracy. Then, you started writing in. Not to just say you liked it (though some of you did, a sentiment I cling to more than I’d like to admit), but to pitch stories, offer dispatches from your communities, share your obsessions, grievances and investigations. Suddenly it felt a little like the beginning of something shared.

Now, page numbers come at a premium, so here’s my wildly undercooked history lesson on the importance of people’s literature:

For all the unforgivable, world-historic failures of Mao’s Great Leap Forward in 1940s China (tens of millions dead, disastrous agricultural policy, an absolute humanitarian catastrophe), the campaign did get one thing right: literacy. At the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art, Mao famously asserted that art and literature should fit “into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part,” a tool to unite and to educate.

It’s propaganda, sure, but the premise holds. Culture isn’t neutral. Literature, at its best, is political not because it preaches, but because it refuses to look away.

Now, before we all panic and my inbox is flooded with accusations of the Memo being a shill for the Chinese Communist Party, I’m not suggesting we all start writing Maoist state-sanctioned haikus about grain production. But if literature and independent publishing is to mean anything in 2025 it better do more than sit pretty on a shelf or an Instagram flat-lay. 

The stories in this issue don’t pretend to be neutral. They’re personal, and they’re political. They investigate, they challenge, and they care. They come from people living through the chaos and they’re written for the people who are, too.

With local elections approaching, this is your reminder that politics isn’t just something that happens in Parliament, it happens in your neighbourhood, your rental contract, your bus route. That’s why you’ll find a voter enrolment form tucked in these pages. Use it (please). Issue 4 will focus on the candidates and policies that will shape our city come election day in October.

Thanks for being a part of it. Keep writing in. Keep pitching. We’ll keep printing.

Joseph Davidson-Labout

Editor-in-Chief

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All images, text, and design in The Canterbury Memo are human-made; we oppose the use of Gen AI in creative and editorial media due to its implications for creatives and writers, the dissemination of accurate information, and the environment. 

A truly grassroots, independent student press, we are not affiliated with the University or UCSA. The Canterbury Memo does not necessarily reflect the views of these organisations. We do not receive funding from any organisation nor do we generate operational revenue; we rely solely on support from the community.

The Canterbury Memo would not be possible without the writers and artists who contributed their time to the project, and those who help behind the scenes. Thank you.

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