A man and a woman—complete strangers by any regular measure yet, inexplicably, not strangers, too—cross paths at an exhibition opening one snowy night in Upstate New York. As if in response to some pre-scripted prompt, they embark on a conversation that will alter each of them in ways neither could have anticipated. A night like any other becomes a decade like no other. Criss-crossing between the US and New Zealand, Claire Beynon’s For when words fail us is a spellbinding story of tenderness and obsession, and art as an agent for change.

Claire Beynon is an artist, writer and interdisciplinary researcher living in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her poetry, flash fiction and short stories have been widely published and anthologised, and she has won or been shortlisted for a number of awards including winning the Takahē Monica Taylor Poetry Prize in 2021 for ‘Today’s Sky’. She works in collaborative partnerships with scientists, composers, artists and writers in Aotearoa and overseas. Two summer research seasons in Antarctica continue to inform her work. Her first collection was Open Book: Poetry & Images.