Writers and Readers Festivals: Recent Episodes
RNZ
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 Māori Now, writer Emma Espiner explored why Pākehā need to understand and embrace tikanga Māori (Māori customs). She joins fellow writers Māmari 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.
British philosopher AC Grayling investigates the “least worst” system of government – and the current alternatives – in a lecture at the 2018 NZ Festival Writers and Readers.
Theologian Lloyd Geering and writer Sarah Sentilles explore questions of faith at 2015 New Zealand Festival Writers and Readers.
Master these four elements and anything you cook will be delicious, says chef and best-selling author Samin Nosrat. She chats to fellow foodie Marianne Elliott at the 2018 NZ Festival Writers and Readers.
Writer and comedian David Walliams on many things including James Bond, cross-dressing and his latest best-selling children's book, Awful Auntie.
Professor of Contemporary Poetry and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Britain's poet laureate, visiting New Zealand for the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival.
Philip Ball writes on all sorts of science-related topics, including theories of colour, invisibility, and music. Eva catches up with him ahead of his talks at the Auckland Writers Festival and for the Royal Society.
The organisers of the Auckland Writers' Festival are pegging this year's event as the biggest yet.
Emily St John Mandel's latest novel 'Station Eleven' recently won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction. She visits the Auckland Writers Festival this week, and tells Eva about what's behind it.
University of Notre Dame scholar Peter Holland is fascinated with William Shakespeare's influence on modern culture. As part of the Auckland Writer's Festival; Peter is giving a talks called Shakespearean Spinach, and The Role of The Critic.
We've all heard of graphic novels by now but what about graphic poetry? Auckland writer Rachel J Fenton is an exponent of this new hybrid art form and will be presenting selections of her work at the Auckland Writers Festival. She mixes watercolour paintings with poetic texts to create what she calls 'epic graphic poems' and tells Standing Room Only's Justin Gregory that using images allows her greater freedom with her choice of words.
Author of six novels, most recently The Bone Clocks, and translator with his wife Keiko Yoshida of The Reason I Jump, written at the age of 13 by autistic child Naoki Higishida. David Mitchell will visit New Zealand for the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival, and a WORD Christchurch Autumn Season event.
Editor for Nature magazine for over 20 years, and author of Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything, Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler, and Invisibility: the Dangerous Allure of the Unseen. He will visit New Zealand for the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival and two Royal Society of New Zealand talks.
Writer Tim Winton has been named an Australian national treasure. His book, The Riders - now considered an Australian classic - was short-listed for the Man Booker prize for fiction, as was his 2002 book Dirt Music. Tim also writes children's books and non-fiction, and his work has been adapted to opera and film. Tim's latest novel is Eyrie, and he is coming to New Zealand for this month's Auckland Writers Festival.
Professional falconer whose work in raptor research and conservation projects informed the writing of her book, H is for Hawk. She will visit New Zealand in May to speak at the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival , the Dunedin Writers Festival , and a WORD Christchurch Autumn Season event .
Novelist and poet Ben Okri had his first novel, Flowers and Shadows, published when he was 21, and has devoted much of his work to describing the social and political chaos in Nigeria, where he was born. His book The Famished Road won the Booker Prize and his most recent novel is called The Age of Magic. He talks to Wallace about his multi-dimensional world, and his non-linear writing. Ben Okri is coming to New Zealand for next month's Auckland Writers Festival.
Xinran on her latest book 'Buy Me The Sky', about the impact of China's one-child policy on those born after 1970. She is coming to New Zealand for next month's Auckland Writers Festival.
Journalist with The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, TV commentator, former radio presenter and national representative rugby union player whose new book is Gallipoli (Random House). He will be speaking at three events at the Auckland Writers Festival (14, 15 and 16 May).
Bill Hayton is a long-time journalist/foreign correspondent with the BBC, and a large portion of his career has been reporting on events in South East Asia, the dissension and the toxic manoeuverings for access and control. He's written two books; his first book, Vietnam: Rising Dragon looked at the human rights abuses, authoritian rule and the economic rise of Vietnam. Bill will be here next month speaking at the Auckland Writers festival, covering issues raised in his latest book, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia. The South China Sea is one of the world's major trading routes and the energy resources of the sea are integral to China's foreign policy, causing friction with nearby countries. One of the flashpoints is between Vietnam and China over the Paracel Islands, both countries are claiming the energy rich surrounding waters as their own.
Stephanie Johnson is an award-winning novelist, poet, playwright and co-founder of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival. She's published eight novels, and is a past winner of the Montana Book Award for The Shag Incident. She's also won the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship in Menton, and the Bruce Mason Memorial Playwright's Award. She has held the University of Auckland writers' residency and several of her novels have been long-listed for the Impac Awards in Dublin. Her latest novel The Writers' Festival is an entertaining look at the publishing industry and the politics and human comedy behind writers' festivals. It follows on from her last book, The Writing Class, which she describes as a novel about writing.
Kim Thúy is a Canadian writer whose family fled Saigon as boat people during the Vietnam War. Her autobiographical novel Ru was an award winning bestseller - drawing on her refugee past. Her latest novel is Man. She will be speaking at the Auckland Writer's Festival in May.
Health science writer Dr Atul Gawande is coming to New Zealand for two events in the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival. He talks to Wallace about health care, how elderly people are treated, and where our ideas about death have gone wrong. His bestselling books include The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Better and, most recently, Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End.
Stephanie Alexander is regarded as one of Australia's great food authors and educators. She has set up several restaurants and is the author of the several cook books, including the best-selling The Cook's Companion which has sold more than half a million copies. She set up the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation in 2004, which runs gardening and cooking programmes in primary schools. Penguin has just published her memoir, A Cooks Life. She is speaking at the Dunedin and Auckland writers festivals. She shares her recipe for her Mum's Red Devil Cake.
Rebecca Macfie, Lloyd Jones and Gaylene Preston discuss dealing creatively with tough stuff through non-fiction, family memoir, and television drama at the 2014 Christchurch Word Writers and Readers Festival. Finlay Macdonald is in the chair.
American journalist who has contributed to The New Yorker since 1977, and is the author of eleven books. He will visit New Zealand for the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival in May.
Amy Bloom is an American writer and psychotherapist, she is coming to Auckland Writers Festival next month. She is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories. Her latest novel is Lucky Us was named by the Washington Post as one of the top 50 fiction books of last year. The story is about two half sisters who meet for the first time in adolescence and follows their travels across America in the 1940s, as they seek for fame and fortune. Her two previous novels are Love Invents Us and Away. She is the University Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University and she was previously a creative writing lecturer at Yale University.
In May, the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival will host some of the finest poets, authors and journalists from New Zealand and abroad. Chairperson Alexandra Bligh tells Eva what's on offer.
Meg Wolitzer, a leading USA novelist, talks about her extensive career with Kate De Goldi, focusing on a recent highly-awarded novel The Interestings.
The symbol 'X' can mean many things - X marks the spot where the treasure is hidden, it's a kiss at the end of a text, a place to put your signature, a mathematical symbol. Vona Groarke is a major voice in Irish poetry and her most recent collection is called X. She joins Wallace to talk about the great legacy of Irish poets.
Journalists Luke Harding, Nicky Hager and Richard King discuss freedom of speech in an era of big data, mass surveillance and the unauthorised release of information on a scale never before seen. The Press Editor Joanna Norris is in the chair.
The UK journalist discusses the extraordinary story of Edward Snowden, and considers the action of spy agencies and their mass surveillance of populations the world over. Harding's interaction with the spies was sometimes sobering, sometimes absurd.
Actor for stage and screen, broadcaster, director, designer, producer and musician, who will be speaking about family memoir, Not My Father's Son, at the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival.
Damian Barr's first book Get it Together: A Guide to Surviving your Quarterlife Crisis. He interviewed 200 people in their twenties, showing that for most, their attitudes to work were their main source of anxiety. He followed that up with his memoir, Maggie and Me about growing up gay in Thatcher's Britain. Damian Barr is coming to New Zealand for the Dunedin Writers Festival and the Auckland Writers Festival.
An intensely personal memoir by one of the country's leading writers of fantasy, exploring the roots of her interest in alternative reality, and intertwining her own story, and that of her family into a remarkable account of a writer and her times.
Writer and illustrator Dav Pilkey has scored a huge worldwide hit with the childrens series Captain Underpants - ratcheting up sales of more than 70 million. Dav Pilkey is coming to NZ as part of the Auckland Writers Festival.
Daniel Mendelsohn is an American memoirist, essayist, critic, columnist, and translator who is presently a Contributing Editor at Travel + Leisure. He is the author of the international 2006 award-winning bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, about growing up in a family haunted by the disappearance of relatives during the Holocaust, and his most recent book is Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays From the Classics to Pop Culture (2012, New York Review Books). He will visit New Zealand for two sessions at the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival (13-17 May).
Zia Haider Rahman is a Bangladeshi-born novelist whose circuitous route to writing his first book included stints as a Wall Street banker and an international human rights lawyer. His book In the Light of What We Know is a cerebral and poetic journey in which two former friends, both of whom who are South-Asian and become friends at University, reconnect twenty years later.
English literature and music graduate whose debut novel, The Chimes, is set in a future Britain where people's memories are controlled by music.
American surgeon and writer, whose new book is Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End.
Dirty tricks - power, politics and vasts amounts of money. Britain's phone-hacking scandal has made for a compelling story. In fact, George Clooney has just announced he's making a movie about it. We'll talk to the Guardian journalist who started it all, Nick Davies. He spent eight years uncovering the full extent of not only hacking at the News of the World, but how other British institutions were caught up in the practice.
Australian author, screenwriter and journalist known for her novels and non-fiction works, the latest of which is This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial.
Military historian Christopher Pugsley talks with John McCrystal about his career, the business of writing about the First World War, and it contemporary resonances.
The eminent historian Professor Margaret MacMillan explores the origins of the First World War, and the contemporary parallels to what happened a century ago. With Kate Hunter in the chair, this session was recorded at the 2014 NZ Festival's Writers and Readers Week.
In a very wide-ranging conversation Diarmaid MacCulloch talks with Peter Biggs about religious belief in the modern world. As well as authoring a number of award-winning books- including Reformation, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004 and 'A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years' - Diarmaid MacCulloch has presented three BBC television series, is Professor of History of the Church at the University of Oxford, a Church of England deacon, a British Academy Fellow and, in 2012, was knighted for services to scholarship.
British science writer, whose work appears in Nature, New Scientist and Prospect, among others. His most recent book is Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler, and he will discuss his article Beauty ≠ Truth, written for Aeon magazine.
Just what is it about Sweden and crime writing? One person who is a star in the genre is Camilla Läckberg. She has sold more than 10 million books in 55 countries, outselling even Steig Larson of the famed Millenium trilogy.
Author, playwright and broadcaster who is a regular panelist on the quiz programme QI, and is a guest of the Auckland Writers Festival.
Sydney based NZ choreographer and film maker presenting 'White Cloud' in collaboration with musician Tim Finn and playwright Tim Duncum.
French writer and poet Jacques Roubaud is described as a senior statesman of European literature and world poetry. His latest translated book, Mathematics, pays homage to one of the great passions of his life: mathematics. He is visiting New Zealand to speak at the Auckland Writers Festival.
'Trainspotting' author Irvine Welsh on his latest book 'The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins', and the challenges of adapting the page to the big screen.
The first University of Otago Scottish Writers Fellow combines her love of music with her desire to write. Janice Galloway has collaborated with opera companies and artists, and written a much loved novel Clara about the life of composer Clara Schumann. She's also written award-winning memoirs, poems, short stories - and here in New Zealand, one of her planned projects involves learning more about our sheep. Janice is a guest at both the Auckland and Dunedin Writers and Readers Festivals.
Adam Johnson's 2013 Pullitzer Prize winning novel, The Orphan Master's Son, follows the story of a boy who is trained to be an assassin and a spy for North Korea. The California writer says when he discovered that most North Koreans can't tell their own story, he had a sense of mission to speak about the topic.
Jang Jin-sung defected after having served as a counter-intelligence officer, and poet laureate, for North Korea's former dictator Kim Jong-il.
Inua Ellams is a word and graphic artist born in Plateau State, Nigeria. He is a writer with a style influenced as much by classic literature as it is by hip hop, by John Keats as it is by MosDef. Also a playwright and performer, 2009 saw the debut of his first play The 14th Tale, which won a prestigious Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His second play toured the UK for 30 dates in 2010. In 2006, he started the urban movement The Midnight Run, which has been held in several cities and has an upcoming date at the Auckland Writers Festival.
Alice Springs-based painter and photographer who has written two memoirs, The Hard Light of Day, and One Thousand Cuts: Life and Art in Central Australia.
American entrepeneur Jessica Jackley on how financial inclusion and the sharing economy can combat poverty in developing countries. Jessica Jackley is a guest at the Auckland Writers Festival this week.
The author of the Samuel Johnson prize winning book 'Mao's Great Famine', Frank Dikotter has followed up with 'The Tragedy of Liberation - A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945 - 1957'. He is in New Zealand for a session on Saturday May 17 at the Auckland Writers Festival.
American author (The Color Purple) and activist who will visit New Zealand in May for the Auckland Writers Festival.
Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig whose work depicts the fragility and follies of the human condition - and our relationship with the natural world. His latest book The Essential Leunig: Cartoons From A Winding Path is published by Penguin. Michael Leunig will be appearing at the Auckland Writer's Festival in May.
Alexander McCall Smith thinks the poet W. H. Auden provides a great guide to living a good life. He talks to Finlay Macdonald about Auden, 15 years of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, his latest book, The Forever Girl, and about his relation, Dr George McCall Smith, who set up New Zealand's first free health service - in the Hokianga. Alexander McCall Smith is speaking at the Auckland Writers Festival in May.
American author of 11 books including the novel May We Be Forgiven and the memoir The Mistress's Daughter. She will visit here in May for the Auckland Writers Festival.
Reza Aslan is an Iranian-American writer and scholar of religions. He is coming to New Zealand in May as part of the Auckland writers festival. His books include: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth and No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam which was named one of the 100 most important books of the last decade.
Several world renowned authors will descend on Auckland this year as part of the country's biggest literary event.
Margaret MacMillan is a professor of international history at St Antony's College, Oxford. She discusses her new book 'The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War'. It has been described by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as "one of the finest books I have ever read on the causes of World War I". She is visiting New Zealand next month for Writers Week at the New Zealand Festival.
Walter A Hass Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, San Francisco, and author of seven books of criticism and a memoir. She will be a guest at Writers Week at the NZ Festival
After more than three decades in comedy, Sandi Toksvig is considered a British national treasure. She is the long-serving host of the BBC Radio 4 political comedy panel show, The News Quiz; author of numerous books - including, most recently, 'Peas & Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners'; has written for television and theatre, and has just been recognised with an OBE in the British New Year's Honours. Born in Denmark, Sandi performed with the Cambridge Footlights while at university, started her career in children's television, and also played on improvisational comedy show, Whose Line is it Anyway.
Acclaimed Australian author Tim Winton has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for 'The Riders' and 'Dirt Music'. His book of short stories 'The Turning' has been made into a film which is about to be released in New Zealand cinemas. He talks about writing, his love of western Australia, and his latest novel 'Eyrie' - the story of Tom Keely, who is divorced, unemployed and living in a seedy flat at the top of a Fremantle high-rise block.
Nick Davies broke the phone hacking scandal that had been covered up for years by Rupert Murdoch's News International, and his work saw the Guardian, alongside The New York Times, become the main news agency to publish excerpts from thousands of classified documents from US military servers. The cables were leaked by Bradley Manning, who was last month given a 35-year jail term for passing the files to WikiLeaks.
Antarctic writer Chris Turney talks to Veronika Meduna about some of the less well-known aspects of Antarctic exploration.
In conversation with Ed Butler, Chris Turney, Rebecca Priestley and Veronika Meduna explore their different perspectives on writing about Antarctica.
Award-winning British novelist David Mitchell and his Japanese wife Keiko Yoshida have an autistic son. They've translated and had published a book by written by a Japanese autistic 13-year-old, Naoki Higashida. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism is intended to demystify the behaviour of autistic children for a 'neurotypical' audience and was first spotted online by Keiko Yoshida.
Russian-American journalist whose new book is The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, and is a guest at the 2013 Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.
The Auckland Writers & Readers Festival is bringing more than 150 authors from around New Zealand and the world. The Festival started in 1999 as a biennial event, but with the popularity of the event, it's been an annual affair since 2006. Anne O'Brien is the Festival director is our guest.
Best-selling historical fiction writer Edward Rutherford's latest book, Paris: The Novel. His sweeping books about other places, like New York, London and Russia are famous for their breadth and attention to historical accuracy. Edward Rutherford is coming to New Zealand for the Auckland Writers and readers festival in May. Edward Rutherford is on the line with us from New York.
Author of a number of books for young adults including the Chaos Walking trilogy, and A Monster Calls. His new novel for adults is The Crane Wife and he will be a guest at the 2013 Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.
Indian novelist who will visit New Zealand in May for the 2013 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.
Aleks Krotoski, Doctor of Philosophy in Social Psychology at the University of Surrey. She examined "how information spreads around the social networks of the World Wide Web" in her PhD. She has a book to be published called, 'Untangling the Web: What the Internet Is Doing To You', and is going to be in New Zealand for the 2013 Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.
Broken Britain is discussed by UK authors Stella Rimington, AD Miller and Geoff Dyer; with Robyn Congreve in the chair.
Caroline Moorehead discusses with Carole Beu her books Human Cargo and A Train in Winter, which tells the story of 230 women of the French Resistance sent to Auschwitz.
Chandran Nair from Hong Kong explores his theory of Consumptionomics, in this year's Michael King Memorial Lecture. Nevil Gibson from the NBR is in the chair.
One of New Zealand's best-known contemporary authors looks back with publisher Geoff Walker over a life devoted to fiction.
While many grown ups would recognise David Walliams from his television comedies such as Little Britain and Come Fly with Me, he is also a successful children's author. His writing, which has been compared with that of Roald Dahl, has won him hordes of young fans. His latest book is entitled 'Ratburger', and it's about a girl called Zoe and her pet rat.
Brian Edwards chairs a lively session at the 2012 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival with one of Ireland's best-known contemporary authors.
Three of New Zealand's most prominent crime writers - Paul Cleave, Vanda Symon and Paul Thomas - discuss how their stories are affected by their distinctly New Zealand setting.
Denise Mina writes about the gritty streets of Glasgow and Ron Rash the remote Appalachian Mountains. They explore how location infuses their very different work.
A personal conversation with a major literary figure of the last 40 years about her upbringing, and how she came to write some of the influential books she has created.
Three leading feminists - Germaine Greer, Sandra Coney and Marilyn Waring - examine how the place of women has changed in the last 40 years.
A lively exploration of the life of Shakespeare's wife by the noted writer and social critic Germaine Greer, recorded at the 2012 NZ International Arts Festival. Linda Hardy is in the chair.
A panel discussion on the theme "Broken Britain". Robyn Congreve is chairing the session, which features UK writers Stella Rimington, AD Miller and Geoff Dyer.
Caroline Moorehead discusses with Carole Beu her book 'A Train in Winter', which tells the story of 230 women of the French Resistance sent to Auschwitz.
There's no denying "doubt" is crucial to science and drives it forward, but it also makes science, and scientists, vulnerable to misrepresentation, according to Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She explores this theme in the 2011 Michael King Memorial Lecture.
Science Editor at The New York Times, Barbara Strauch has written books on the human brain in teenage and middle age years, and how research is expanding our knowledge of its development and function. She discusses her discoveries with Kim Hill.
Now living in Auckland, sisters Hana Schofield and Atka Reid were caught up in 1992 in the middle of the civil war which tore Yugoslavia apart. Then aged twelve, Hana boards one of the last UN evacuation buses to flee the besieged city of Sarajevo. Her 21-year-old sister Atka stays behind to look after their five younger siblings. Atka's daily life is punctuated by sniper and mortar attacks and desperate food shortages as she and the family struggle to survive. The authors of Goodbye Sarajevo talk with Lynn Freeman about the events which brought them and their family to New Zealand.
Born in Delhi, Madhur Jaffrey was is an actress and cookbook writer who is regarded by many as a world authority on Indian food. She talks with Alexa Johnston about her astonishing life, her family, and her dedication to demystifying Indian cooking.
Feared by some in the food trade for the ferocity of his judgments, the writer A.A. Gill is a TV and restaurant critic for the UK's Sunday Times. His witty, acerbic and honest conversation with chef, and television presenter, Al Brown about food, travel, and life, is one of the highlights of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.
British novelist, and patron of the British Stammering Association. His latest book is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
Prolific British author whose various series for children and teenagers have been international hits. He discusses his upper class upbringing - being raised by nannies, and being sent to boarding school at the age of eight, an experience he describes as brutal.
Actress and best-selling author Madhur Jaffrey has been one of the most influential people in taking Indian cookery to a global audience.
American surgeon and writer for the New Yorker, and author of three books, most recently The Checklist Manifesto.
Three lively commentators on the arts Sarah Thornton, Denis Dutton and John Carey discuss its complexities, contradictions, and enduring attractions with Linda Tyler. John Carey's controversial book What Good Are the Arts? (2005) tackled a number of questions designed to agitate art-lovers:"What is a work of art? Is 'high art' superior? Can science help? Do the arts make us better? Can art be a religion?". Denis Dutton's The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution asks why we dedicate so much time, effort and resources to art when it seemingly does nothing to increase our chances of survival, and goes on to set out what Darwinian aesthetics can bring to our understanding of art. Despite having thrown herself into the vortex of the contemporary art world in the course of researching Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton continues to be fascinated by artists and amused by the world that supports them.
With Treasa Dunworth in the chair, Antony Loewenstein examines the prospects of the Middle East peace process in the new geo-political context, and alternative suggestions on how to tackle the crisis, mapping out where hope lies for a resolution. Antony Loewenstein's bestseller, My Israel Question, generated a storm of controversy, critical praise and robust public debate when it was first published in 2006. A third, fully updated and expanded edition of his forensic discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came out in 2009.
Jill Dawson has published six novels and also writes poetry. Her latest novel, The Great Lover, captures the allure of poet Rupert Brooke and his intriguing relationships, in the euphoric period before the First World War, in Cambridge and later in Tahiti. Elizabeth Smither is an award-winning poet who has just published her fifth novel, Lola. With the wisdom and wry humour of maturity, it explores love and death, music and friendship and is set in Australia and New Zealand. Carole Beu is in the chair.
Two master storytellers with very different backgrounds talk with Kim Hill about the origins of their success, their shared passion for history, the joys of discovery, and the satisfaction that comes with bringing forgotten stories back to life. Anne Salmond is one of New Zealand's most pre-eminent historians, and her recent publication, the acclaimed Aphrodite's Island (2009), is the first to take her off-shore to Tahiti. Thomas Keneally is a well-known and prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. His fascination for the people on the margins of history has seen him embark on a three-volume history of Australia, the first of which was published in 2009, Australians: Origins to Eureka.
In conversation with Sean Plunket, journalist and human rights consultant Michael Otterman explores the recent history of Iraq. Highly critical of what the USA has achieved since George W. Bush's proclamation of the end of hostilities in Iraq and the 'Mission Accomplished' message given seven years ago, Otterman focuses on the one million Iraqi dead, five million refugees, and what he considers the decimation of an entire culture and way of life. He argues that western governments and the mainstream media continue to ignore or play down the human costs of the war on Iraqi citizens who have provided many of the interviews featured in his book.
Three panellists discuss their divergent views on the global and regional rise of religion and its impact on every-day lives, particularly on the vulnerable residents in war-torn parts of the world including the Middle East. Adrian Wooldridge (Schumpeter columnist for The Economist), Michael Otterman (Erasing Iraq) and Antony Loewenstein (My Israel Question) consider the issues in this lively session chaired by Sean Plunket.
Sam Elworthy, Laurie Chittenden, Michael Heyward and Derek Johns consider whether the future of the book in a digital, technological, future. Noel Murphy chairs.
Kamila Shamsie and Ilija Trojanow explore from their positions on the margins of their adopted cultures what it means to write for, and about, a globalised world. John Newton is in the chair.
Margo Lanagan and Neil Gaiman discuss their approaches towards creating literature for young adult readers. In the chair is Kate De Goldi.
Simon Schama and Margo Lanagan reflect on their different approaches to narrative and history, in a session chaired by Lydia Wevers.
This outspoken atheist and evolutionary biologist sets out his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Bernard Beckett chairs.
One of the UK's leading historians discusses his craft, and explores why he uses television as a key means of communication to a wide audience. In the chair is Sean Plunket.
"I'm wondering if… we will have a more balanced hedonism, a more balanced understanding of pleasure, of the art of living. I would hope that… economists might begin to envisage more sustainable, but less dynamically growing economies that privilege values other than economic strength, because we know these are the things we like living for - the pleasures of life, love and art, and creativity. " Sean Plunket chairs an industrial-strength panel of leading international authors considering different visions of the future: Hendrick Hertzberg, Mohammed Kanif, Richard Holloway, Marcus Chown, James Surowiecki, and George Friedman. The stimulating discussion ranges widely, from economics, science, technology and theology to international culture.
"Although this is not the truth, it's actual." Beginning with readings from the self-described "odd men out" of New Zealand literature, this session traces Greg McGee's writing of a TV mini-series on Erebus story, and Sam Mahon's new manuscript about a funeral. Their conversation entertainingly surveys the literary, political, and arts scene in New Zealand, The author David Geary is in the chair.
"When you've been fired and made redundant, you tend to lose faith in the people who employ you. And you think that you might like to employ yourself for a while, because you can guarantee that you won't fire, or make yourself redundant. And you can guarantee to give yourself more holidays, and have whatever chair you like." This breezy, informative session features two popular New Zealand writers talking about the business of writing with humour, irony and self-deprecation. The audience reaction is vocal and delighted, as the conversation takes flight. Jim Mora acts as the ringmaster for a very lively hour.
"Some glittering, eventful lives are in fact, repetitive and depressing… It's the drama of individuation which gives a biography its suspense, and cuts through the trivia of life to its vital mystery." Judith Thurman presents the Michael King Memorial Lecture, talking about some of her deep experience as a biographer of figures as diverse as Colette and Isak Dinesen - who was the subject of the award-winning movie Out of Africa. The difference between capturing the lives of a woman who was largely uncharted by biography, and one who lived in the glare of the public eye, the subject of many biographical works, is explored with humour and insight. Thurman also walks the audience through the intriguing process of her writing and rewriting the opening to an essay on tofu. "I don't know how to write. I'm not being disingenuous when I say that. What I do know is what good writing is and when I'm not doing it."
"Every fact in the New Yorker is checked. Every fact. Every name, every place, every price, every noun, every adjective… (even) the cartoons are checked." In a good-humoured and lively session, New Yorker staff Hendrik Hertzberg, James Surowiecki, Judith Thurman talk with Rhonda Sherman about the history of the leading USA magazine. They share anecdotes and reminiscences, exploring how the 85-year-old institution has changed in recent years. The difficulty of being positive, how President Obama is being covered, and the role of the magazine as a sophisticated guide to politics and culture is discussed. The issue of duration is also analysed, given the New Yorker tradition of very long-form stories. The writers also share their favourite piece of reading in the New Yorker.
Travel was once seen as a rite of passage for New Zealanders, but today's decision to get on an aeroplane is not so simple. Graeme Lay, Lloyd Spencer Davis and Thomas Kohnstamm explore areas in common to their very different approaches towards travel writing. Kapka Kassabova is in the chair. Graeme Lay's Inside the Cannibal Pot is a new kind of travel book which explores how and why we travel. Lloyd Spencer Davis's Looking for Darwin describes a journey both 'through the heart and mind' and some of the most beautiful and isolated places in the world. After four years in perpetual motion, American travel writer Thomas Kohnstamm published Do Travel Writers Go To Hell? A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics and Professional Hedonism. The panel discussion is chaired by Kapka Kassabova.
Is there a New Zealand cuisine or have we been swept away into a miasma of 'Asian-Pacific fusion'? Food writers Helen Leach, Alexa Johnston and Ray McVinnie discuss with Lauraine Jacobs the state of New Zealand cuisine past and present. Helen Leach's The Pavlova Story looks at the development of this national dish in New Zealand kitchens. Chef and food writer Ray McVinnie joins Helen and Alexa Johnston (Ladies, A Plate) to take an affectionate look at favourite dishes which have graced our tables past and present. Lauraine Jacobs is in the chair.
In this second of a series of panel discussions recorded in May, Joan Druett, Mary McCallum, and Barbara Else talk with Graham Beattie about how the ocean around New Zealand connects some very different historical books. Joan Druett is one of our most widely published authors, as novelist and maritime historian. Joan's most recent book Island of the Lost is an account of an 1864 shipwreck on the bleak Auckland Islands. Newcomer Mary McCallum's atmospheric novel The Blue is set in 1938 in Tory Channel and centres on Lilian, a whaler's wife, whose life is both threatened and sustained by the sea. Novelist Barbara Else completes the panel. Her castaway adventure Wild Latitudes rollicks through the brave new world of 19th-century New Zealand. Graham Beattie is in the chair.
Auckland as a location and an imaginative idea is explored by writers Stephanie Johnson, Derek Hansen and Paula Morris, with Paula Green in the chair. Stephanie Johnson's work explores the city of her birth, from 19th-century Parnell in Belief to 1960s Manukau in Music from a Distant Room. Derek Hansen brings to life the landscape of 1950s Ponsonby in Remember Me. Paula Morris explores contemporary Maori, Polynesian, and Asian Auckland in Queen of Beauty and Hibiscus Coast. Paula Green is in the chair.
Part five of the Writers and Readers week discussions. Panellists Patricia Grace, David Mitchell and Alexis Wright take part in a discussion chaired by Jane Stafford. Patricia Grace, winner of the 2007 Neustadt International Prize, once wrote "there's a way the older people have of telling a story, a way where the beginning is not the beginning, the end is not the end." Her writing demonstrates that a story need not proceed in a straight line. David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas' opens with what purports to be the Pacific journal of a gentleman traveller in the age of exploration, but its ambition to explode time results in a tale that ripples out through a series of textual wormholes. Writing 'Carpentaria', Alexis Wright challenged herself to escape linear time and embrace all times. In this epic novel she says, "Time is represented by the resilience of ancient beliefs overlaying the inherited colonial experience."
According to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the war in Iraq will become the world's first three trillion dollar war. He joins cartoonist Garry Trudeau, novelist and journalist James Meek and theatre director Nigel Jamieson, to discuss the true costs of Iraq with John Campbell. A long-time critic of the war, Stiglitz has very recently published The Three Trillion Dollar War. Trudeau, in his celebrated comic Doonesbury, has taken up the task of not only berating the Bush administration, but acknowledging the costs paid by American men and women in uniform. Meek covered the war in Afghanistan, has written indictments of Guantanamo Bay and more recently published We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, a novel that deals with the aftermath of 9/11. Jamieson has brought the plight of David Hicks and other Guantanamo detainees to life in the theatre work Honour Bound. Chair: John Campbell - Panellists: Joseph Stiglitz, Garry Trudeau, James Meek, Nigel Jamieson.
What is the difference between a story and a scientific explanation? How do the two fit together, and how can we use both in our attempt to make sense of the world? These are the big questions preoccupying award-winning novelist and teacher Bernard Beckett in Falling for Science. Zoologist and filmmaker Lloyd Spencer Davis repeatedly asks "What the hell am I doing here?" - in the scientific, religious and personal senses - in Looking for Darwin, an account of his globetrotting journey in search of his hero. Palaeontologist Hamish Campbell has spent many years searching for explanations for New Zealand's unique physical and geological past and he offers a different theory of what might have happened in In Search of Ancient New Zealand. Three men with a passion for science reflect on life after Darwin and explore the usefulness and the limits of scientific stories in unravelling life's mysteries and meaning with one of New Zealand's most enquiring minds, Kim Hill. Chair: Kim Hill - Panellists: Bernard Beckett, Lloyd Spencer Davis and Hamish Campbell.
"Two World Wars and one World Cup," chant English football supporters at their German counterparts. On the pitch and elsewhere, the repercussions of World War II continue. In this programme three award-winning novelists - one English, one German, one New Zealander - discuss how the war has affected them, their writing and their respective countries. In the novels of Ian McEwan, including Black Dogs and Atonement, the conflict's legacy is frequently brought to bear on relationships, pressuring them into unexpected shapes and spaces. For Uwe Timm the spectre of Nazism casts a lingering pall over his family and his country. In My Brother's Shadow, based around the diary of his brother who was a soldier in the Waffen SS, attempts to understand his nation's commitment to duty, honour and obedience. These themes are echoed in The Invention of Curried Sausage, a delightful love story, and Midsummer Night, a macabre quest through post-reunification Berlin. For CK Stead the war is in part an absence as well as a presence. In Talking About O'Dwyer he examines the legacy of the Battle of Crete, and in The Secret Life of Modernism he explores young Antipodeans' post-war experiences in London. Chaired by Kate Camp. Chair: Kate Camp - Panellists: Ian McEwan, Uwe Timm, CK Stead.
"After a couple of hours at their desks, on September 12, 2001, all the writers on earth were reluctantly considering a change of occupation" (Martin Amis). In this programme three very different fiction writers talk about their 9/11 stories. Patrick McGrath, a British expatriate and long-time resident of New York, tells three stories of the city in Ghost Town: Tales of Manhattan Then and Now, each of which explores the revolutionary violence that has shaped a nation. The British journalist and war correspondent James Meek negotiates the fury and impotence of those covering the war in We Are Now Beginning Our Descent. Mohsin Hamid was resident in New York when the planes hit. The main character in his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist whispers a love story from a café in Lahore. Together these three writers talk to Paul Diamond about how 9/11 has changed the world and the literary landscape, and explain why it is they felt compelled to tell 9/11 stories. Chair: Paul Diamond. Panelists: Patrick McGrath, James Meek, Mohsin Hamid.
Australian novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, talking about her first novel for 15 years.
British novelist David Mitchell has been described as Britain's reigning master of postmodern fiction.
"Haven't they got anything better to do?" is the ironic subtitle of this encounter between a group of very different travel writers. Travel stories from the USA are recounted by Jo and Gareth Morgan ('Backblocks America'); bicycling in South America in Eleanor Meecham's 'Llamas & Empanadas'; and travelling in Tibet in Ian Robinson's alarmingly-titled 'You Must Die Once'. TV cameraman Geoff Mackley chases bad weather all over the world in 'Extreme Danger' and Pico Iyer reflects on the relationship between travel and globalisation in 'Sun after Dark'. Graham Reid controls this international traffic in a busy and entertaining session.
A panel discussion tracing the extraordinary growth in popularity of locally-produced non-fiction. Two publishers (Peter Dowling from Reed, and Mary Varnham from Awa Press) and an expert in creative non-fiction (Harry Ricketts) map out the salient features of this rapidly-unfolding literary territory. Graeme Hunt is in the chair.
Linda Tyler chairs a wide-ranging session in which Hamish Keith, NewZealand's most senior writer on art, Justin Paton, one of the most lucid of our younger generation of critics and curators, and Matthew Collings, a leading artist and critic from the UK, consider the practice of their craft. From the paintings and writings of Colin McCahon to the media coverage of the Cool Britannia generation, this conversation provides fresh insight into what makes good (and bad) art description, commentary and criticism.
The international publishing scene depends on translation, as it opens books to new markets and audiences. Three writers who have an intimate knowledge of translation consider the complexities and challenges of the process, which at its best involves a high level of collaboration between translator and author. The panel features the award-winning Andreï Makine, born in the USSR, but now based in France, Linda Olsson from Sweden and France's Pierre Furlan, who has translated both Elizabeth Knox and Alan Duff into French. Local translator Jean Anderson is in the chair.
Nightmare childhoods and damaged lives are laid bare in the very different work of Lionel Shriver, author of the award-winning 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'; and Paul Broks, whose study of neuropsychology 'Into the Silent Land' was a surprise bestseller. Despite their different approaches to storytelling, both writers find a lot of common territory, in a conversation moderated by psychiatrist Dr Jan Reeves.
Chaired by Festival co-director Peter Wells, this lively session includes extensive reading by three very different authors whose autobiographical work provides different perspectives on growing up with fathers who behaved abusively and damagingly towards their families. Intriguingly, the theme of post-colonial experience is common to The Wah-Wah Diaries by Richard E Grant, Heartland by Neil Cross, and Deep Beyond the Reef by Owen Scott.
If writing fiction is the art of the possible, then writing non-fiction can be seen as the seen as the art of the probable There seems to be an almost insatiable demand for our non-fiction to be served up in an enticing and satisfying way and Ken Haley, journalist and author of Emails From the Edge, along with Anna Funder and Christopher Kremmer, are all Australian authors who consider the issues involved with the practice of their craft. In the chair is Christopher Moore, arts editor of the Christchurch Press.
This session brings together the New Zealand writers Rachael King, and Philip Temple, and British writer Emma Darwin to talk about why we can't get enough of historical fiction. Barbara Larson from the New Zealand publication house Longacre Press is in the chair.
Chair Owen Marshall brings together a group of writers to discuss how they make their living from writing long-form fiction. The panellists discussing the business of writing novels are Emily Perkins, Stuart McLean, Paula Morris, and Glen Duncan.
Chaired by Kate de Goldi, this session brings together the celebrated New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy and Australian writer Marcus Zusak, discussing a wide range of issues about writing for older children and young adults. Margaret Mahy is undoubtedly one of the world's leading and most gifted writers of the difficult genre of books for young adults. In this panel discussion recorded at the Press Christchurch Writers' Festival in September 2006 she talks about issues which affect her work as a writer with Australian author Markus Zusak. His books for children and young adults have been published and critically-acclaimed worldwide. His latest work and first adult novel, The Book Thief was shortlisted for four literary awards and won the 2006 Kathleen Mitchell Award.
The final programme in the coverage of the Press Christchurch Writers' Festival session brings together four writers who have taken very different approaches towards representing the Second World War: Patrica Grace, Markus Zusak, Julian Novitz, and Alison Parr. Is fiction or non-fiction better at capturing the immediacy and intensity of armed conflict? The session's chaired by Alan Marriott.