Readers Festival พอดคาสต์

A discussion about Tāngata Ngāi Tahu: People of Ngāi Tahu, Volume 2 tracing the history of the Otago region through the Ngāi Tahu people of Āraiteuru. The korero was facilitated by Waiariki Parata-Taiapa who lead co-editors Helen Brown and Dr Michael J. Stevens and contributing author and chair of Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou Edward Ellison as they talked a…

Cityscapes and their surroundings have an intimate connection to the literary imagination, inscribing a sense of place and identity that persists through time. Frank Gordon, Roger Hickin, David Ciccoricco, and Nicola Cummins will discuss the varied ways they have mapped our city’s stories.

HG Parry is an emerging author who writes complex and engaging fantasy novels.​She will explain to Lynn Freeman the imaginative thought processes that led her, in her most recent series, to reinvent the French Revolution.

Elizabeth Knox, acclaimed author of many novels, including The Vintner’s Luck and, most recently, The Absolute Book, will unpick the meanings and implications, the whys and wherefores, of placing a ‘fantasy’ world inside the ‘real’ world, with HG Parry. ​

Rose Carlyle, who shot to literary fame with her debut novel, The Girl in the Mirror, will talk to Phillippa Duffy about what happens to a story when a book is snapped up by Hollywood. ​

Chair Susan Sims and authors Nalini Singh, Steff Green, and Jayne Castel will unpick why romance writing matters in 2021, and discuss the ongoing appeal of romance novels and what success looks like to writers of this billion-dollar genre.

The current Poet Laureate, David Eggleton, will dive into his new book, The Wilder Years: Selected Poems, with fellow poet Victor Billot. This session will be followed by the official launch of the book.

“My neighbour gave me a stack of old calendars, and so, in the absence of any other paper, I’ll write to you on the backs of all the vanished years.” With her latest novel Remote Sympathy, award-winning bestseller Catherine Chidgey tells an engrossing and unsettling tale of a Nazi Germany labour camp from the perspectives of three wilfully obliviou…

Rebecca Kiddle and Amanda Thomas, contributing writers for Imagining Decolonisation, will discuss why decolonisation is beneficial to everyone, and who is, and who should be, doing the mahi. ​

From sprawling braided riverbeds to exhilarating surf breaks, Aotearoa is both an angler's paradise and a surfer's dream. Dougal Rillstone and Derek Morrison will sit down with fellow explorer Bruce Ansley to talk about their sense of self in remote and wild places.

One of the joys of reading is being transported into the wilds of both your own and someone else’s imagination. HG Parry and Gareth Ward will discuss crafting stories that take us into fantasy worlds far from the mundane, with Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb.

For centuries, poetry has played an important role in both recording cultural events and reflecting the mood of the people. David Eggleton, Jessica Thompson Carr, and Fiona Farrell will share perspectives on the politics inherent in poetry. Chaired by Emma Neale, they will examine the way poetry enables debate, and how it can subvert and challenge …

In Map for the Heart: Ida Valley Essays, Jillian Sullivan’s gentle essays about her wanderings and wonderings in the vast Ida Valley are an exploration of the physical place, and how it connects us to our community. She and Liz Breslin will discuss how place and space affect the heart.

Māori Scholars at the Research Interface. Co-editor of Ngā Kete Mātauranga: Māori Scholars at the Research Interface, Jacinta Ruru describes this beautiful and transformative book as “an opportunity to provide New Zealanders with an insight into how Mātauranga is positively influencing the Western-dominated disciplines of knowledge in the research …

Becky Manawatu's debut novel, Auē, garnered critical acclaim and announced her as a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction, winning the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and the Hubert Church Prize for Fiction at the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Kiran Dass described Auē as “a beautifully pitched and nuanced hopeful story about the…

​​What Do They Have to Tell Us About the Future? Vanda Symon, Steff Green, HG Parry, and Angela Wanhalla will talk about women who’ve come before and those who are here now, and the footprints they’ve laid for our future. Hosted by Majella Cullinane.

Rose Carlyle, Nalini Singh, and Kyle Mewburn will read an excerpt from a significant childhood story and talk about the shaping effect it has had on their adulthood. Hosted by Bridget Schaumann.

Lynn Freeman sits down with Vincent O’Sullivan to talk about his recent work, including his new collection of poems Things OK with you? and of course the biographical portrait, Ralph Hotere: The Dark is Light Enough.

“Step through the gateway now to stories that are as relevant today as they ever were,” invites master storyteller Witi Ihimaera. He will talk with Jacinta Ruru about his latest book, Navigating the Stars: Māori Creation Myths, in which he traces the history of Māori people through their creation myths, bringing them to the twenty-first century.…

Jared Savage and Steve Braunias will tackle some of the big questions about crime in Aotearoa and what they have learned in the process of writing about it. With Rob Kidd.

From paranormal romance to crime thrillers, The New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh will talk to Kirby-Jane Hallum about how and why she has crossed genres, and her three most recent releases: Alpha Night, Archangel’s Sun, and Quiet in Her Bones.

Billed as ‘the female Bear Grylls’, Dutch-born Miriam Lancewood quit modern comforts and the teaching profession eight years ago to embrace an off-grid, primitive life in the New Zealand wilds. She’s written about her experiences in Woman in the Wilderness. What began as a year-long experiment, alongside her Kiwi husband Peter, has turned into a fu…

Australian Children’s Laureate Morris Gleitzman says: “Young people need stories more than ever. Stories to delight, stories to beguile, stories to inspire, stories to move deeply.” He believes stories help our young people to develop empathy, insight and resilience: “I like to think of them as a bit like vitamins.” He’s been producing those vitami…

For Mother’s Day, we’ve tasked five mums (at different stages of parenting) with writing a letter to motherhood. With its mixed bag of delight and exhaustion, worry and hugs, sweetness and chaos, we know that motherhood hangs differently on all who serve it. The mums stepping up to the mic: Clementine Ford, Michèle A’Court, Tina Makereti, Majella C…

One of New Zealand’s most distinguished poets, Bluff-based Cilla McQueen has published a whopping 15 volumes of poetry. She has scooped the NZ Book Award for Poetry three times, was the New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2011, and was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2010. Her latest collection, Poeta, gathers toge…

We’re gathering together four novelists who’ve attached their fictions to the scaffold of history: Morris Gleitzman is working on the final instalment of his Onceseries (about a Jewish boy’s experiences in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War); Tina Makereti grew her latest novel, The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke, from an 1846 articl…

In 2018 Stuff reported on te reo Māori courses “selling out as fast as tickets for Ed Sheeran or Adele”. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently pledged to ensure that a million New Zealanders can kōrero with confidence in te reo Māori by 2040. We gather four energetic te reo advocates to take the pulse of one of New Zealand’s official languages: Sc…

Gavin Bishop has published over 70 books. His latest works illustrate aspects of New Zealand history and are thoroughly sumptuous publications: Aotearoa (which won both the non-fiction prize and the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award at last year’s Children and Young Adult Book Awards) and Cook’s Cook (an idiosyncratic view of Captain Cook’s voya…

One of Australia’s most successful authors, Markus Zusak has written six novels, including that hugely popular The Book Thief. Bestselling American author John Green said of Zusak, “I’m in awe of him”. His latest novel, Bridge of Clay, was 13 years in the making (which, according to Zusak’s calculations, works out at 1.9 words a day). It follows th…

Irish author John Boyne won a global fan base for his book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. He’s written 11 novels for adults and is soon to release his sixth book for younger readers. His latest novel A Ladder to the Sky, which follows a character both intriguing and appalling in equal measure, has been described by The Observer as “an ingeniously …

Award-winning investigative reporter Stephen Davis spent three decades working on the frontlines of journalism – for TV, magazines and newspapers, and as an educator. Among those who have tried to persuade him from reporting his stories: men with Kalashnikovs, government lawyers, corporate PRs in fancy suits, senior police officers, billionaires an…

Award-winning hip-hop artist, social entrepreneur and writer Akala will talk with Paula Morris about his bestselling debut Natives, a searing, modern polemic on race and class in the British Empire. His memoir reflects on growing up poor, mixed race and politicised in Britain during the 1980s and ’90s and offers a nuanced historical treatise that T…

We bring together two audacious feminist writers who put their heads well above the parapets with their recent books: Lizzie Marvelly, author of That F Word: Growing up Feminist in Aotearoa and Australian author Clementine Ford, whose bestselling book Fight Like a Girl was described by one reader as “an unapologetic roar for equality”. Ford and Mar…

Karori Confidential, a collection of Sunday columns by the award-winning Leah McFall, is full of her trademark wit and daring. No subject is too sacred or small (leakproof pants, her cervix, Marie Kondo or royal wedding cakes). Stand-up comedian and writer Michèle A’Court finds her humour in similar places: “Telling jokes doesn’t necessarily speak …

One of the most talented shapeshifters of the New Zealand literary world,Vincent O’Sullivan is a poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, librettist, biographer, editor and critic. His latest work, the secret-laden family saga All This By Chance, is his first novel in 20 years and a frontrunner for this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.…

In her introduction to Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety, Naomi Arnold notes, “In 2017, one in five New Zealanders sought help for a diagnosed mood or anxiety disorder... but the real figures will be even higher than that, and they’re growing.” Arnold will join two others who’ve done their bit to destigmatise mental illness: Ashleigh Young, one of …

Six of our international/NZ festival guests tackle the theme ‘Distracted’. Each will speak about guarding creative space amid today’s digital noise. The line-up is astonishingly good: John Boyne (Ireland), Markus Zusak (Australia), Clementine Ford(Australia), Akala (UK), Tina Makereti(NZ) and Chris Tse (NZ), with MC Michèle A’Court. This show was b…

Liam McIlvanney has been described as a master of Tartan noir. His latest novel The Quaker was crowned Scottish Crime Book of the Year in 2018. Based on the unsolved Bible John murders that shocked Glasgow in the 1960s (which McIlvanney describes as “a kind of West of Scotland equivalent of the Kennedy assassination”) the book takes its own fiction…

Indie-rock legend Shayne Carter (best known for his bands Straitjacket Fits and Dimmer) will talk about his new autobiography, Dead People I Have Known. Shihad’s Jon Toogood gave the book this verdict: “Sometimes profound. Sometimes utterly hilarious. I couldn’t put this book down. A triumph.” Carter will talk about his stellar music career, the Du…

Four women tell Mirama Kamo stories from their adventurous lives: Hollie Woodhouse, Lilia Tarawa, Michelle Dickinson and Margaret Austin.

At the 2018 Word Christchurch writers' festival, 125 years of women's suffrage is discussed by a panel of leading New Zealanders. Kim Hill is in the chair.

At the 2018 Word Christchurch writers' festival, Dame Anne Salmond discusses with Eruera Tarena how her life has led to her most recent book Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds.

At the 2018 Word Christchurch writers' festival, Chessie Henry (and GP father Chris) discusses her family memoir We Can Make a Life with Bronywn Hayward.

At the 2018 Word Christchurch writers' festival, Ed Husain discusses his book The House of Islam with Donna Miles-Mojab.

Investigative journalist David Neiwert discusses his book Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Time of Trump with Paul Thomas.

Holocaust Family Secrets are explored by Vincent O'Sullivan and Diana Wichtel in this highlight from Wellington's Writers and Readers festival in 2018. Paula Morris is in the chair.

The author of Draw Your Weapons Sarah Sentilles talks to Jo Randerson at the NZ Festival Writers and Readers 2018 about depictions of violence and terror in contemporary culture.

In her 2017 essay We’re All M?ori Now, writer Emma Espiner explored why P?keh? need to understand and embrace tikanga M?ori (M?ori customs). She joins fellow writers M?mari Stephens and Morgan Godfery for a conversation about the role of tikanga in 21st-century New Zealand.

Prof AC Grayling talks about Brexit, and the failure of the greater vision for the EU with MP Chris Finlayson.

Patricia Lockwood talks to Kim Hill about a very particular Catholic upbringing in her memoir Priestdaddy, and its portrait of her father as a charming but damaged man.