Ivy Alvarez is the Guest Fiction Writer for issue 104 of takahē magazine with her short story, ‘Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry’.

Ivy Alvarez is the Guest Fiction Writer for issue 104 of takahē magazine with her short story, ‘Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry’.
Thanks to Dr. Karen Head, Missouri S&T’s Director of Arts & Innovation, two poems by Ivy Alvarez feature on their FB page as part of National Poetry Month.
The first poem is the last poem in Diaspora: Volume L (Paloma Press).
The second poem, Utak-biyâ, is forthcoming in Ethel Zine (along with another poem, Ugaling hayop).
Stop Kiss opened on Wednesday, 23 February 2022 to a very warm buzz in the air, and an appreciative audience. Backstage, the talk was of community case numbers rising, of household members isolating, and it felt like we were on borrowed time. Thursday night (24 February) beheld a more intimate audience, but no less enthused and appreciative of the story we were telling.
That was our final night: we had to shutter the show when first one then, over the coming days, a second and third person from our company caught “the spicy cough”.
But hey, we performed for two beautiful nights 💕 And I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed the camaraderie, that sweetly ephemeral life, until I returned to it.
I’m so thankful to have been part of a talented, supportive, and good-natured gang who, even now, are still checking in on each other’s wellbeing. @emberscollective
And while this was going on during the evenings, my early mornings (Wednesday and Thursday) were taken over with acting for my very first TV commercial.
There, too, I was fortunate enough to experience a very professional set for my first one. It was super fun, a lovely time, low-stress, and of course, I got to act. The stars were smiling down on me last week. How lucky am I!
Ivy Alvarez writes:
I have this strange compulsion, so I’m following it.
Disturbance is a novel in verse that chronicles a multiple homicide, a tragic case of domestic violence, where a family is gunned down by the husband and father, and features poems in a kaleidoscope of voices from all the characters involved.
It took me seven years to write. I wonder how long it’ll take me to read it aloud?
This Sunday, 5 April 2020, I’ll begin reading from Disturbance, at 3 pm NZDT (UTC +13) on Instagram Live, and then every Sunday, same time, until I finish the book. instagram.com/ivyalvarez
If I can figure it out, I’ll also link it with Facebook Live. (No guarantees, though.)
Trigger warnings for strong content and language.
Grab your Disturbance from a local bookstore.
Or here: https://www.serenbooks.com/productdisplay/disturbance
Or here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1781720878
Time converter: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
Johanna Emeney, in an interview with the New Zealand Books Council, mentions Ivy Alvarez’s poems, which appear in the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2020.
As Jack has done in previous editions, you’ve given some poets more than one poem. How so?
Some of the poems seemed to belong as a ‘set’. For example, Chris Tse’s ghost poems and Ivy Alvarez’s poems based on Filipino sayings.