User:Gill Winter NZ

Gill Winter is an ESOL teacher and New Zealand writer.

In 1991 she contributed an article to "The Book of New Zealand Women - Ko Kui Ma Te Kaupapa" about the life and work of her mother, Rosa Thompson. In 2011 she self-published "Between Monks and Monkeys" (paperback and e-book) and in 2013 she wrote and published "The Yeti in the Library" (paperback and e-book.) Both books were inspired by her time spent teaching English to Tibetans in exile in the Indian town of Dharamshala, home to the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetan refugees.

Gill Winter spent eleven years working as publicist and public programmes organiser at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, one of New Zealand’s premier contemporary art museums. She left the art world in 1999 to create Flying Piglets, a touring agency for folk and blues musicians. During the next few years she also worked as marketing manager for the Lake Taupo and Taranaki Arts Festivals, helped on the family pig farm and was a regular volunteer for Trade Aid www.tradeaid.org.nz, New Zealand’s largest Fair Trade organisation. In 2009, she wound up Flying Piglets and completed a CELTA course in teaching English as a second language. In 2010, she answered an advertisement on the Jobs page of Dave’s ESL Café website for volunteer teachers to work at Tibet Charity www.tibetcharity.in in McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala, India.

In 2011 she published "Between Monks and Monkeys", describing her experiences in India. She returned to Dharamshala for her second three-month teaching stint at Tibet Charity in March 2012. During 2012 there was an alarming rise in the number of self-immolations by Tibetans, both within Tibet and in exile, in protest at the lack of human rights and religious freedom within Tibet, as well as the continuing exile of the Dalai Lama. Sympathy with the Tibetan cause inspired "The Yeti in the Library", subtitled "Encounters with compassion, death and life in the Tibetan community in exile."