Everything starts somewhere. 'Emergence', a book of creative work from Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha University of Canterbury's Master of Writing degree, shows us how many different forms beginnings can take. This volume's fiction writers, poets, and essayists tell resonant stories of the present moment, they wrestle with crucial questions of love and influence and abandonment, and they handle challenging material using approaches ranging from lyric memory to tight analysis. 'Emergence' is a vivid demonstration of the health of one of Aotearoa's newest and most dynamic writing programmes.