Once upon a time there was a girl called Sul. She was born on a Sunday so she was a child of grace with a disposition that all agreed was sunny. But round about the time of her sixteenth birthday, she fell into a terrible silence. It was as if her heart had filled with ice, the toughest, most lovely metamorphosis of water. She is summoned to a journey which is fraught with danger and with anguish. How will she survive?

Waimakariri Libraries invite lovers of stories and beautiful art to enjoy a lively book talk to celebrate 'The girl who was swallowed by ice and snow', a book written by Bernadette Hall with accompanying artworks by Kathryn Madill.

This special event features images of the original artworks by Kathryn Madill, and a reading from the book by Bernadette Hall. This beautiful book is 20 years in the making, with roots that go back to their shared 2004 residency in Antarctica.

Bernadette Hall did not begin to publish until her 40’s but quickly cemented her reputation as one of the country’s more distinctive poetic voices. Her first collection HEARTWOOD was published in 1989 with drawings by Joanna Margaret Paul. She has held writing Fellowships at Otago, Canterbury, and Victoria Universities. Poetry has taken her to Hobart, New York, Iowa, and Ireland where she held the Rathcoola Residency in Co. Cork. She has 11 collections of poetry to her name, two of them, The Merino Princess, and Fancy Dancing, are selections of published work. In 2008 she co-founded The Hagley Writers' Institute in Otautahi Christchurch. From 2009 –2025 she curated and chaired an annual literary event, The Writers’ Tea Party in the Amberley Library. She was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry in 2015.

Dunedin artist Kathryn Madill is an established New Zealand artist. Her paintings, drawings and prints explore fragments of literature, legend and landscape. Within these delicate works, we find poised moments of human experience stalled against the grey of day, the dark of night, the barren contours of a desolate landscape. Madill has been a consistent exhibitor at City Art Depot since our first exhibition in 2001.

“Encountering the art of Kathryn Madill is like being given a key to a locked room of curios and talismans — the votive tokens of time and memory” – David Eggleton, 2011

Special Thanks to City Art Depot for supplying the images and text.