Auckland Writers Festival - Stories Start Here

Nau Mai, Haere Mai ki te Waituhi o Tāmaki 2025

Welcome to the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival

Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki prides itself on its rich array of local and international talent, with elements that will surprise, delight and challenge. Each year is different and this year will surprise, delight and challenge in new ways, confirming that the Festival remains a significant cultural taonga.

The Trustees hold strong the belief that writing and reading – of stories, ideas and experiences –have the power to transform and uplift, for readers and writers everywhere. Thank you to our team who have worked hard to deliver a programme that is engaging and inspiring, showcasing this basic belief. My thanks also to our many generous supporters for their help in ensuring the Festival can continue, and grow. I would also like to thank our voluntary Trustees for their enthusiastic gifts of time and talent, and to The Women’s Bookshop and our many volunteers over Festival week.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the many guest writers who will take to the stage during the 2025 Festival. You are everything to the Festival; we are thankful for your mātauranga and hope you have a wonderful festival experience.

Charlotte McLoughlin Chair

For 26 years Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki has showcased some of the world’s most celebrated storytellers and thinkers in our city.

This year, tens of thousands of people will once again take their pick from a jam-packed programme with more than 150 events across a range of venues in the heart of Tāmaki Makaurau.

If this is your first time, nau mai; if you're a Festival regular already, nau mai anō! The Festival is a unique opportunity to hear from beloved writers from Aotearoa and beyond; to find new favourites; to participate in vital conversations and to discover fresh ways to think about the world.

From global politics to picture books; science and nature to historical fiction; crime thrillers to poetry; memoir to literary fictionit’s all here. Thanks to our generous supporters, over 25% of the Festival events remain free of charge.

This programme is your guide: browse the How to Festival guide on page 12; see page 18 and beyond for event details; plan your bookish week using the day-planner tucked at the back of the programme. Stories start here, and we can’t wait to see where they take you.

Lyndsey Fineran Artistic Director

Catriona Ferguson Managing Director

MEET THE TEAM

A big thanks to our wonderful board, staff, programmers and volunteers whose ideas, creativity and tireless efforts are essential to the success of the Festival.

Lyndsey Fineran Artistic Director Ringatohu Toi

Catriona Ferguson Managing Director Ringatohu Whakahaere

Vicki Angland Volunteer Coordinator Kairuruku Tūao

Celia Bridge Marketing & Development Coordinator Kairuruku Whakatairanga, Whanaketanga

Vicki Cooksley Production Manager Kaiwhakahaere Kaupapa

Gemma Finlay Publicist Takawaenga Pāpāho

Kate Meere Marketing & Development Manager Kaiwhakahaere Whakatairanga, Whanaketanga

Jo Reive Festival Administrator Kaiwhakarite Hui Ahurei

Grace Sinclair Programme Manager Kaiwhakahaere Hōtaka

Gabrielle Vincent Family and Schools Programmer Kaiwhakaū Hōtaka ā-Whānau, ā-Kura

FESTIVAL TRUSTEES

Charlotte McLoughlin Chair

Julian Knights AO

Nicola Legat ONZM Secretary

Leigh Melville

Anna Rawhiti-Connell Deputy Chair

Mark Russell Treasurer

Jenna Todd (Kāi Tahu)

Emma Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) – Retired February 2025

FOUNDING TRUSTEES

Stephanie Johnson

Peter Wells

Tēnā koutou katoa

The 2025 Artistic Team

LYNDSEY FINERAN

Artistic Director

AWF 25: STORIES START HERE

During last year’s opening night speech, I mentioned that a common question I get asked about working for a Festival is “so what do you do for the rest of the year?” It got a laugh, broke the ice in the big theatre, and off we went with a beautiful evening and the recordattended Festival days that followed.

Opening nights are always a thrilling cusp; a baton-hander; the moment you let go of something that you and a small but mighty team have worked passionately on behind the scenes for a year and hand over in the hope/trust/surety that it will unfold and fly in the hands of its writers and audiences.

Why work a year towards just six days? Because we know those packed Festival days hold incredible, inspiring and infinite possibilities – the ripple effect of which stretches well beyond the venue’s doors and the Festival’s closing night. You never know

where one book, kōrero, idea or interaction will take you.

It’s an honour to work with this talented team – both the artistic colleagues here, and the wider team who make this event happen. The varied, surprising, thrilling and intriguing collection of stories this programme represents is richer because of them.

I hope you enjoy reading the pages ahead, and that you look forward to starting your own AWF 25 story this May.

MATARIKI BENNETT AND MICHAEL BENNETT (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue)

Guest Co-Curators Ngā Manuhiri Kairauhī Takirua

He Ahi Kei Taku Korokoro: My Throat Holds Fire

We are pāpā and tamāhine, we are both writers and filmmakers, we share DNA and whakapapa and we share a passion for the power of storytelling and the belief that words can challenge, burn and change the world. This is our third year as Co-Curators of Waituhi o Tāmaki, with our sessions united

under the theme of He Ahi Kei Taku Korokoro: My Throat Holds Fire. We are honoured and delighted in our 2025 sessions to once again bring together a bonfire of creators and thinkers with korokoro mau ahi. He pāpā me te tamāhine māua. Māua, māua he ringatuhi, he kaiwaihanga kiriata. He mea heke māua i ngā kāwei whakapapa kotahi, ka mutu, e kotahi ana tō māua kaingākau ki te whakapuaki kōrero, me tō māua whakapono ki te mana nui o te kupu hei mea e werohia ai, e tahuna ai, e panonitia anō ai te ao. Koinei te tau tuatoru i tū ai māua hei Kairauhī Takirua mō te Waituhi o Tāmaki, ā, kua whakatōpūhia ā māua huihuinga ki te maru o te kaupapa, He Ahi Kei Taku Korokoro: My Throat Holds Fire. Nō māua te whiwhinga me te hari nui i ā māua huihuinga mō tēnei tau 2025 i te whakakotahitanga mai o ētahi anō kaihika i te ahi o Auaha, o Whakaaro, otirā, o ētahi, he korokoro mau ahi ō rātou.

ZECH SOAKAI Guest Curator

“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.” — Ben Okri

If only the 2017 version of me could see me now.

With two English Literature degrees and all the university existential dread — it’s no understatement to say that this has been a dream job of mine — that I now can tick off the bucket list.

I want to extend my deepest thanks to the programming team, specifically our brilliant Artistic Director Lyndsey Fineran, for their belief in the vision.

In a time where we need our communities the most, I pondered whose voices and stories could really make an impact here. I hope you laugh, grieve and feel withyour-whole-heart the stories told at this year’s festival.

GRACE SINCLAIR Programme Manager

Before joining the Auckland Writers Festival I was a bookseller, where matching the right book to the right reader was my primary aim. One great joy of my role at the Festival is being a small part in doing this matchmaking on a much larger scale.

I’m interested in experiences that allow the public to interact with the writers and creatives they love (or are yet to discover), which is why I’m drawn to the accessibility of Kōrero Corner. A free, cosy space where I’d encourage you to drop in over the weekend for book recommendations from experts, daily readings from debut authors plus much more, in a space that provides a friendly entry-point to the world of ideas on offer!

GABRIELLE VINCENT

Family and Schools

Programmer

Step into worlds brimming with laughter and adventure, where children can explore stories that leap off the page!

From hilarious tales about a family of robbers to heartwarming stories of passing down wisdom, these storytellers spark imaginations and leave a lasting impression. Whether through colourful performances, magnetic discussions or handson experiences, every moment is designed to captivate young minds.

With a dynamic line-up featuring local literary icons and vibrant international guests, we’re set to inspire and delight audiences of all ages. From the youngest listeners to the young-at-heart, there’s something for everyone. So gather your kids, grandkids and any young hearts, and come celebrate the magic of storytelling with us –where laughter fills the air and imagination knows no limits!

GAVIN BISHOP

2025 Honoured Writer and Illustrator in Residence

We are delighted to welcome Gavin Bishop (Tainui, Ngāti Awa) as our 2025 Honoured Writer and Illustrator in Residence. See page 33 for his Honoured Writer interview, and pages 49-53 for his family events and enchanting illustrations.

RUBY MACOMBER

STREETSIDE: BRITOMART Programmer

Ruby is a proud mixed-Moana writer who facilitates writing wānanga in communities and prisons across the motu with Te Kāhui – YANZ. In 2024, Ruby curated the New Zealand Young Writers’ Festival. We are pleased to have her bringing STREETSIDE: BRITOMART to life.

Our Partners

The Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki is enormously grateful to our dedicated partners and sponsors

Support the Festival

OUR PATRONS

THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS PATRONS

PLATINUM

Betsy & Michael Benjamin

Philip Carter

Antonia Fisher & Stuart Grieve

Theresa Gattung

Anna Gibbons

Joséphine & Ross Green

Pip Greenwood & David Gibson

Patricia & Gary Holden

Michael Horton

Lizanne & Julian Knights

Pip Muir & Kit Toogood

Kevin Ramsbottom-Isherwood

Jenny & Andrew Smith

Susan & Gavin Walker

Anonymous (2)

GOLD

John Barnett

Libby & Andrew Barrett

Frances Bell

Ruth Bonita & Robert Beaglehole

Neil Brown

Sally Christie

Jo Clayton

Barbie & Paul Cook

Candis Craven & John Daly-Peoples

Raewyn Dalziel

Michelle Deery

Anni Docking

Kent Gardner & Ngaere Duff

Bridget Hanley & Mike Allen

Catherine & Michael Hapgood

Wyn & Steve Hoadley

Julyan Lawry

Sir Chris & Lady Dayle Mace

Leigh & Donald Melville

Charlotte & Ian McLoughlin

Christine & Derek Nolan

Rachel & Jason Paris

Georgina & Jolyon Ralston

Mark Russell & Rachel Henderson

Amanda Sadlier

Judith Shea & Keryn Smith

Anthea & Peter Springford

John Spooner

Robyn Spooner

Tania Stiles & James Griffin

Denise & Paul Vujcich

Joan Vujcich

Michael Webb

Anonymous (3)

SILVER

Brenda & Stephen Allen

Margaret Anderson & Sally Jackson

Gaye & Michael Andrews

Louise & Mark Binns

Clare Bradley & Brian Carter

Brigit & Giles Brant

Katherine Burson

Louise & Robert Clark

Debbie Cook & Sue Haigh

Christine Fernyhough

Susan Francis & Chris Bridgeman

Isabel & Jean-Maurice Gaillard

Dame Jenny Gibbs

Jane & Kevin Glover

Jo & John Gow

Victoria & John Gresson

Adina Halpern & David Flacks

Anne Hargreaves

Katie Jacobs & Chris Aughton

Jo Johnson & Jarvie Tunnicliffe

Judy Jordan & Trevor Bayly

Claire Laidlaw

Jenny & Robert Loosley

Bronwyn Monopoli

Ali Nelson

Jane & Norman Parlane

Matthew Patrick

Nadine & Ian Perera

Helen Pollock

Sarah & Sefton Powrie

Richard Prevett

Anna & Troy Rawhiti-Connell

Maree & Colin Reynolds

Fran Ricketts

Juliet Robieson

Jane & David Simcock

Amanda & Craig Styris

Liz Tucker

Stephanie Ulrich & Marty Forsman

Nancy van der Laan

Anonymous (8)

BRONZE

Midge Bentley

Carole Beu

Anne Blackburn

Hillary Brick

Claire & Peter Bruell

Angela & Kim Campbell

Jill & Tim Caughley

Christine Chilwell

Tania Clifton-Smith

Fran & Phil Connell

Amber Coulter & Andrew Lewis

Ainslie Dewe

Danelle Dinsdale & Bruce Isles

Clare Gordon

Charlotte Hellaby & Fraser Norris

Leonie Hynds

Kathy Kane & Nigel Harrison

Deborah Kelland

Carol-Ann & Max Lamb

Hilary & Maureen Lewis

Julie Loranger & Lindsay Niemann

Susan McCarthy

Pip & John McKay

Peter Macky

Shona & Bary Old

Kathryn Roberts

Nicky Ryan & John Dixon

Kathryn Todd & Tony Nicholson

Margaret & Mike Tomlinson

Peter Vial

Laura Watts

Christine Wechsler

Anonymous (2)

DONORS

Edward Federman

Anna Gibbons

Julian & Lizanne Knights

Rachel & Jason Paris

Nadine & Ian Perera

FOUNDING DONORS

Erika & Robin Congreve

Our Bold Patrons have shown philanthropic leadership by generously doubling their donation.

WE ARE A SMALL ORGANISATION

WITH A BIG TASK. THE KIND SUPPORT WE RECEIVE EACH YEAR FROM PEOPLE LIKE YOU IS VITAL TO DELIVER THIS WORLD-CLASS, MUCH-LOVED FESTIVAL.

JOIN US AS A SPONSOR

This year more than 200 speakers will challenge, inform and delight thousands of festival-goers, including students and families. Sponsorship opportunities range from $5,000+GST.

Based on your company’s business and philanthropic objectives, we can work with you to tailor a sponsorship package which provides maximum benefit.

BECOME A PATRON (FROM $550)

Give back and take a seat in the front row. Patronage helps us deliver the very best writers as well as a strong and accessible Schools Programme. Step forward as a patron and help open up the vibrant world of books and ideas to others.

Patrons enjoy free access to many events, reserved seating at ticketed events, access to the exclusive Patrons’ Lounge, discounted tickets, invitations to private parties and priority booking via a dedicated line (no fees) and acknowledgement in our Festival programme.

A special pack with complimentary tickets, lanyards and wristbands are available for Patrons on site at the Festival. Benefits vary depending upon patronage level.

PATRONS’ LOUNGE

Exclusive to our Patrons, the Lounge is situated in the Aotea Centre’s Circle Bar and is the perfect place to relax or meet other Patrons between sessions. Enjoy complimentary wine, coffee, snacks and meals. To find out more about other amazing benefits when you become an AWF Patron, please visit writersfestival.co.nz/ our-supporters/become-a-patron/ or contact kmeere@writersfestival. co.nz

JOIN AS A FRIEND ($110)

Enjoy reserved seating at ticketed events, priority booking via a dedicated phone line (no fees), invitations to our Programme Launch event, news of visiting authors and special offers.

BEQUESTS AND DONATIONS

If literacy, books and ideas are important to you, please help us in our mission to support reading in Aotearoa New Zealand through a bequest or donating to the Auckland Readers & Writers Festival Charitable Trust.

All donations over $5 are tax deductible. Visit writersfestival. co.nz/our-supporters/donate/ or contact info@writersfestival.co.nz

FIND OUT MORE

To discuss personalised opportunities or explore the full range of options and benefits, visit our website or contact:

Kate Meere

Marketing & Development Manager kmeere@writersfestival.co.nz or writersfestival.co.nz/support-us.

What’s On

TUESDAY 13 – SUNDAY 18 MAY AOTEA CENTRE

The Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki runs over six thrilling days in the heart of Tāmaki Makaurau. Join us for lively conversations and vibrant performances featuring some of the finest writers and thinkers from Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. Our stimulating programme has something for everyone...

SCHOOLS PROGRAMME

H Ō TAKA KURA

Tue 13 – Thur 15 May

The ever-popular Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki Schools Programme Hōtaka Kura is back for another three days of vibrant and uplifting events for younger audiences from Years 5–13. The programme is overflowing with outstanding local and international talent to spark wonder and encourage the next generation of readers and writers, and launches the annual Barfoot & Thompson Young Authors Challenge competition. All tickets should be booked through schools at writersfestival.co.nz/schools/ programme.

Supported by Freemasons Foundation.

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

Tue 13 – Sun 18 May

Join us for packed days of events that weave together the bookish world’s best local and international writers in a range of conversations, debates, performances and more.

MASTERCLASSES

Hone your writing skills in a series of masterclasses led by our smart and inspirational writers and creatives. Whether you’re looking for motivation, craft development or to connect with other writers, our series is designed to enhance and broaden your writing skills.

PERFORMANCES

Lively performance events are woven through the programme. From spoken word to comedy, theatre pieces to music, these are literary events done differently.

BOOKSHOP

The Women’s Bookshop will be offering three Festival Bookshops at the Aotea Centre, selling a wide range of books by our featured writers. Every purchase supports the Festival.

BOOK SIGNINGS

Following each event, there is a unique opportunity to have your copy (or copies!) of the authors’ books signed. These will take place immediately after the events unless we let you know otherwise.

SLIDO

Audiences will have an opportunity to submit a question to speakers via our digital platform, Slido, as well as via the live mic. Instructions will be on the screen at the venue when you arrive.

Free Events

WE PASSIONATELY BELIEVE THAT THE ARTS SHOULD BE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL, AND ARE PROUD TO WORK HARD WITH VALUED PARTNERS TO MAKE OVER 25% OF OUR PROGRAMME FREE AND UNTICKETED.

STREETSIDE: BRITOMART

Fri 9 May

Britomart, Various Venues

We love STREETSIDE but we heard you: the FOMO of whether to be on site or pounding the streets for it on the Festival’s Friday night was growing just too strong.

This year, mark your diaries for Friday 9 May – a whole week earlier - as Tāmaki Makaurau’s writers, storytellers, musicians and more take over BRITOMART for a riotous evening of words and creativity and declare the city ‘open’ for the packed bookish days ahead.

It’s energetic, it’s surprising, it’s fun, and it’s a dedicated celebration of our city’s incredible artistic scene that’s free and open to all to be part of.

Look out for the programme being released in April to plan your route through the evening, or just turn up and join the ride.

Supported by Britomart Group.

KŌRERO CORNER

Fri 16 May – Sun 18 May Aotea Centre

Nestled on Level 5 of the Aotea Centre, Kōrero Corner presents a fantastic range of short, informal sessions that promise to spark inspiration, curiosity and delight. Swing by daily to see what’s happening.

PUKAPUKA ADVENTURES

Sat 17 - Sun 18 May 5th Floor, Aotea Centre

Come along to another thrilling Pukapuka Adventures programme, packed with exciting events for tamariki and their whānau – all absolutely free. Enjoy witchy songs, epic dancing, interactive storytelling, dragon drawing, creative crafts, and plenty of laughs!

Full programme details are available on pages 49-54. writersfestival.co.nz/ pukapukaadventures.

Supported by Freemasons Foundation.

IN AOTEA SQUARE

The fun doesn’t start and end at the venue doors. This year, enjoy more activities out in the square. Join a human-powered publishing machine; set off on a touring poetry projection trail; enter Granny McFlitter’s cosy caravan for storytelling and crafts; add a scale to Kate Talbot’s giant dragon mural, or simply grab a coffee or a bite from the food trucks and hang out amongst the buzz.

How to Festival

ACCESSIBILITY

Please specify when purchasing tickets if you have wheelchair requirements. Hearing aid loops are available in the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre. See aucklandlive.co.nz/ accessibility for further information or contact the Festival Office.

FILMING AND CAMERAS

Filming, photography and sound recording of sessions takes place for archival and publicity purposes. Some audience members may be included during photography and filming. If you do not wish to be photographed or filmed, please advise an usher. No flash photography or recording by audience members is permitted.

FREE EVENTS

Free Events help make the programme accessible to all, no tickets are required and seats are available on a first-come, firstserved basis. Queues often start to form 45 minutes prior to the event start and venue capacities will be managed by staff.

INFORMATION DESK

Lost property, programme and other information is available at the Information Desk. Patrons and Friends can collect their tickets, information packs and wristbands at the Information Desk, located on Level 2 of the Aotea Centre (outside the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre).

PARKING

The Civic Car Park is under the Aotea Centre with entry from Greys Avenue. It often reaches capacity over the Festival weekend. Limited pre-pay parking can be purchased – see aucklandlive.co.nz. Other parking buildings are nearby on Greys Avenue, Albert Street and Victoria Street. Due to road closures, we recommend that you plan your journey and allow extra time.

PODCASTS & VIDEOS

A selection of 2025 recordings will be uploaded to our website and our channels after the Festival.

PROGRAMME UPDATES

This programme is correct at the time of going to print but changes can happen for reasons outside our control. To stay informed, visit writersfestival.co.nz or subscribe to our newsletter writersfestival. co.nz/contact-us/ or follow our social media channels:

Instagram: @aklwritersfest

Facebook: @facebook.com/akwrfest TikTok: @aklwritersfest

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

For information on bus, ferry and train services, visit at.govt.nz or call AT on (09) 366 6400. A weekend bike valet service will be provided in partnership with Bike Auckland and Barfoot & Thompson. Please see our website for details.

REFRESHMENTS

Coffee, drinks and refreshments are available for purchase at the Aotea Centre and in Aotea Square. There will also be food trucks situated in Aotea Square during the Festival weekend.

SEATING

All sessions are general admission, except catered events. Patrons, Friends and Sponsors have reserved seating in the front rows at ticketed events. Colour-coded wristbands are required.

TICKETS

TICKET PRICES

All sessions are General Events, unless indicated. GST is included in prices. Ticketmaster service fees and infrastructure charges apply. Tickets can be purchased individually or as part of a Take 3, Take 5 or Take 10 Ticket Bundle –see Ticket Bundles for conditions.

Earlybird ticket sales run from 9.00am Friday 14 March until 9.00am Friday 11 April.

GENERAL EVENTS

$24 Earlybird until 9am Fri 11 April

$29.50 Standard thereafter

$19.50 Patrons

$13 Students.

FEATURE EVENTS

$45.50 Earlybird until 9am Fri 11 April

$49.50 Standard thereafter

$39.50 Patrons

$21 Students.

LUNCH EVENT

$125 main floor

$115 high top tables

$100 mezzanine (restricted view). Includes a two-course meal. No discounts apply.

OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS

$16 Standard

$12.50 Patrons

$12.50 Students.

MASTERCLASSES

$65 no discounts apply.

STUDENTS

$12.50 Ockham NZ Book Awards

$13 General Events

$21 Feature Events.

Excludes Masterclasses and restaurant events. ID required and subject to availability.

TICKET BUNDLES

Save when you see more! Ticket Bundles can be used for up to 10 sessions and shared with friends. Purchase and redeem via Ticketmaster’s website, by phone or at the box office. All sessions are subject to availability, so please redeem early.

Ticket Bundles can only be used for General Events. Masterclasses and Feature Events are excluded. Ticket Bundles are not tickets and do not guarantee admission. Bundles must be redeemed for tickets (subject to availability).

If a session is cancelled, no refund will be offered but may be transferred to a different session.

Take 10 Bundle

$215 until 9am Fri 11 April $254 thereafter.

Take 5 Bundle

$110 until 9am Fri 11 April

$130 thereafter.

Take 3 Bundle

$69 until 9am Fri 11 April

$78 thereafter.

FREE EVENTS

No tickets are required for Free Events. Please arrive early to avoid disappointment.

HOW TO BOOK

PATRONS AND FRIENDS

We are delighted to offer our Patrons and Friends extra booking support.

Dedicated booking lines

Patrons 09 970 9745 groups@ticketmaster.co.nz.

Friends 0800 335 769.

Please quote your Patron name or Friend Membership number.

Patrons receive priority booking,

premium seating, special ticket prices and access to the exclusive Patrons’ Lounge. For more information see page 9 or visit writersfestival.co.nz

PUBLIC BOOKINGS

Online ticketmaster.co.nz 0800 111 999 or 09 970 9700.

In person Aotea Centre Box Office or Ticketmaster outlets.

All online booking tickets are digital. You can either print at home or download tickets to your mobile. Physical tickets are available at the box office or when your booking is being processed by Ticketmaster.

TICKETMASTER SERVICE FEES

Per transaction

$8 Online

$8 Tel and post

$5.50 courier fee

No booking fee on tickets purchased at the Aotea Box Office.

Infrastructure Charge

An Infrastructure Charge of up to 1.95% applies to tickets purchased online or via the Ticketmaster contact centre. No Infrastructure Charge applies when you purchase tickets in person at outlets or Box Offices.

TERMS & CONDITIONS

Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki reserves the right to alter without notice any advertised schedule of artists or events. No refunds. No exchanges. Tickets are subject to availability.

Privacy notice: Auckland Writers Festival retains your contact details in order to keep you updated about Festival events. If you wish to unsubscribe, or for privacy queries, please contact info@writersfestival.co.nz

Should the 2025 Festival be cancelled due to any exceptional adverse event, refunds will be offered.

and the idea creators

We believe celebrating writing, sharing ideas and telling stories is more important than ever. That’s why we are the Principal Partner of the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o T maki.

At ARA, our story is about more than just delivering essential building and infrastructure services. We’re always thinking about how we can create value for our customers, support our community and enrich the lives of New Zealanders through the arts.

Essential services for facilities & infrastructure • Fire & Security • Electrical • Building Services • Products

1300 233 305 aragroup.com

Pictured: Award-winning author Selina Tusitala Marsh (www.mophead.co.nz), during the 2024 Auckland Writers Festival Schools Programme.

Image credit: Craig White

Principal Partner of the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki

A lot has happened over the last 10 years. Looking back on a tumultuous decade, there are two things we’re particularly proud of: delivering over a thousand new homes for the people of Tāmaki Makaurau and our continuing role as principal sponsor of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. 2025 marks the tenth year of our relationship with the awards and we couldn’t be more excited to celebrate this milestone. Here’s to the next chapter!

MAKING HOMES, BUILDING IMAGINATION

01 FREE STREETSIDE: BRITOMART

FRIDAY

EVENING

BRITOMART, VARIOUS VENUES PROGRAMME TO BE ANNOUNCED IN APRIL

We love STREETSIDE but we heard you: the FOMO of whether to be on site or pounding the streets for it on the Festival’s Friday night was growing just too strong.

This year, mark your diaries for Friday 9 May – a whole week earlier - as Tāmaki Makaurau’s writers, storytellers, musicians and more take over BRITOMART for a riotous evening of words and creativity and declare the city ‘open’ for the packed bookish days ahead.

It’s energetic, it’s surprising, it’s fun, and it’s a dedicated celebration of our city’s incredible artistic scene that’s free and open to all to be part of.

Look out for the programme being released in April to plan your route through the evening, or just turn up and join the ride.

Supported by Britomart Group.

02

FEATURE EVENT

An withEvening Trent Dalton

7.00-8.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

The Aotea Centre foyer at the end of Trent Dalton’s AWF ’24 session was a sight to behold: some 2000+ people spilling out who had been moved to tears, joy, hope, laughter and new perspectives by Trent’s own journey and those he writes about.

Happily, Trent loved it too.

For one night only he returns to the Kiri Te Kanawa stage for a night of conversation with Michelle Langstone and an extended audience Q+A section – as well as to be part of a special announcement about his next exciting project in Tāmaki Makaurau.

But if you’re not yet a convert to Trent’s work, or missed him last time, fear not. The evening will trace his career to date: from his early journalism career telling the stories of those on the margins; his mega-hit debut Boy Swallows Universe; hugely popular novels All Our Shimmering Skies and Lola in the Mirror ; acclaimed stage and Netflix adaptations, as well as Love Stories, gathered by the author from real people on Brisbane’s streets.

Join him and get your Festival week off to the best possible start.

Earlybird $45.50; Standard $49.50; Patrons $39.50; Students $21.

Supported by Auckland Live.

Images from STREETSIDE: BRITOMART 2024.

Lunch with Ben Macintyre

12.30-2.30PM

ORIGINE, COMMERCIAL BAY

A rare opportunity to hear from one of the world’s most esteemed and popular historians, and associate editor at The Times, over a special two-course lunch.

Ben Macintyre is the bestselling author of Colditz, Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and several have been adapted for the screen.

His work as a correspondent has seen him report from New York, Paris and Washington and his latest thrilling book, The Siege – deemed “masterly” by the New York Timesrecounts the SAS’ dramatic six-day hostage rescue mission at the Iranian Embassy in 1980.

Don’t miss hearing from Ben as he shares insights about his distinguished career, with a unique chance to ask your own questions.

$125 (main floor); $115 (high top tables); $100 (mezzanine; restricted view). Price includes a two-course meal.

Supported by the Michael King Writers Centre.

FEATURE EVENT

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2025

Our Finest. In bookstores and libraries now.

7.00-9.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards ceremony is the biggest night in our literary calendar.

Join authors, publishers, booksellers, books media and MC Miriama Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga) to hear the judges announce the winners of the coveted General Non-Fiction Award, the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction, and the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.

After the presentation of the Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book award comes one of the most special parts of the evening as the 16 finalists read from their brilliant books.

If you’re a fan of great New Zealand literature, come and show your support! All welcome.

Finalists

General Non-Fiction Award: Flora Feltham; Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato); Una Cruickshank; Richard Shaw.

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry: Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu); C.K. Stead; Emma Neale; Richard von Sturmer.

BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction: Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor, Greg Donson; Athol McCredie; Matiu Baker (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue), Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald, Rebecca Rice; Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī)

Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction: Laurence Fearnley; Damien Wilkins; Kirsty Gunn; Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti RangatahiMatakore, Pākehā)

Standard $16; Patrons $12.50; Students $12.50.

Note: This session can be included in Ticket Bundle selections.

THURSDAY

05 FREE

A New Light

6.45AM & 5.10PM

STARTING AOTEA SQUARE AND CLOCKWISE LOOP THROUGH CBD

From opening word to closing lines; daybreak to nightfall; first event to last, the events at AWF bookend a world of stories each day.

But we know Festival-goers’ journeys don’t start and end at the Aotea Centre’s doors.

From filing through the city on early Festival mornings with the fizz of anticipation for what’s ahead; to the satisfied journey home at the end of each day, filled with new ideas, stories and connections, the Festival sets in motion a beautiful reverberation of words and fresh perspectives throughout the city.

To celebrate the city of stories that Tāmaki becomes during AWF, award-winning designer Marcus McShane will weave his bike-bound projector through the city’s streets and alleyways, casting on to its architecture Festival writers’ words that capture the beauty of daybreak and nightfall, each Festival day.

*This is a cycle-led projection route around the inner city that can be followed at walking pace. The full route will last about 1 hour, and attendees are welcome to join for its entirety, or drop in/ out. Projection locations will be announced closer to the Festival

Supported by Heart of the City.

Festival Gala Night: The Moment I Knew

7.00-8.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

The penny drops. An idea dawns. The fog clears. A route forward emerges. In the Festival’s much loved opening night, eight stellar writers speak to a moment of realisation – piercing, clarifying, liberating, affirming, terrifying or otherwise – in their life or work.

Featuring:

Esteemed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín; renowned Shakespearean actor Harriet Walter; trailblazing voice in women's, queer and Māori liberation movements Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato); internationally bestselling novelist David Nicholls; BAFTA-nominated spoken word poet Lemn Sissay; distinguished Australian journalist and broadcaster Stan Grant; Aotearoa New Zealand novelist of the phenomenally popular Sorrow and Bliss Meg Mason and poet and Festival Guest Curator Zech Soakai

Hosted by Miriama McDowell (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi).

Earlybird $45.50; Standard $49.50; Patrons $39.50; Students $21.

Supported by Craigs Investment Partners, the Australian High Commission and Culture Ireland.

Supporting New Zealand Literature

Writer, illustrator and publishing grants | Residencies | Festivals | Skills development

International opportunities | Awards

ARTS COUNCIL OF NEW ZEALAND TOI AOTEAROA

We encourage, promote and support the arts in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders www.creativenz.govt.nz | funding@creativenz.govt.nz

Image: Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement 2024 recipients, Neville Peat (Non-fiction), Lynley Dodd (Fiction) and Apirana Taylor (Poetry).

07 FREE A New Light

6.45AM & 5.10PM STARTING AOTEA SQUARE AND CLOCKWISE LOOP THROUGH CBD

From opening word to closing lines; daybreak to nightfall; first event to last, the events at AWF bookend a world of stories each day.

But we know Festival-goers’ journeys don’t start and end at the Aotea Centre’s doors.

From filing through the city on early Festival mornings with the fizz of anticipation for what’s ahead; to the satisfied journey home at the end of each day, filled with new ideas, stories and connections, the Festival sets in motion a beautiful reverberation of words and fresh perspectives throughout the city.

To celebrate the city of stories that Tāmaki becomes during AWF, award-winning designer Marcus McShane will weave his bike-bound projector through the city’s streets and alleyways, casting on to its architecture Festival writers’ words that capture the beauty of daybreak and nightfall each Festival day.

*This is a cycle-led projection route around the inner city that can be followed at walking pace. The full route will last about 1 hour, and attendees are welcome to join for its entirety, or drop in/ out. Projection locations will be announced closer to the Festival

Supported

08-11 FREE

Kōrero Corner

10

12.30-1.00pm

Worldwide Book Club: Māori Literature

Jordan Tricklebank (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Mahuta) is the curator of the popular Māori Literature Blog – join him to add more Māori literature to your reading pile with recommendations ranging from overlooked gems to contemporary classics.

11

2.00-4.00pm

Wikipedia edit-a-thon –Aotearoa New Zealand Authors edition

Does your favourite local author have a Wikipedia page? If not, now’s your chance to help! Join expert ‘Wikimedians’ from Auckland Museum as they teach you how to improve articles and add references to Wikipedia – part of a larger initiative to spotlight underrepresented topics and enrich Wikipedia with more diverse content. You may even snap writers on site and update their article photos in real time. Come along and help support how our literary heritage is represented online.

Vancouver Writers Festival Director

Leslie Hurtig is a tastemaker in the Canadian literary scene and is here to grow your reading list with her picks from the year ahead. 09 11.00-11.30am

Debut of the Day: Michelle Rahurahu

Michelle Rahurahu (Ngāti Rahurahu, Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whaoa) will read from their stunning debut Poorhara and answer audience questions about the journey to writing a first novel.

12

Lynley Edmeades:

Writing the Fragment

9.00-10.30AM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

The list, the aphorism, the diary, the notebook, the essay, the poem, the journal, the pillow book… From Sappho through to T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, to more contemporary voices like Maggie Nelson and Claudia Rankine, writers have been working with and in the fragment for centuries. And like its visual counterpart, the mosaic or collage, the combining of fragments into larger wholes can often bring about new and surprising results.

What happens when we intersperse our personal meditations with fragments of a wider reality? How does the juxtaposition of contrasting fragments enable a new reading of first-person accounts? And how might this fragmenting vision depict our contemporary daily life, which is full of many — often contrasting — pieces? Join poet, essayist, teacher and Landfall editor Lynley Edmeades to find out. $65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

13 The Scene of the Crime

10.00-11.00AM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

“King of Tartan Noir” Ian Rankin’s long-running Inspector Rebus books are rooted in the streets of Edinburgh, but read eagerly across countries, cultures and languages.

Chris Whitaker’s crime epics including All the Colours of the Dark use vast American landscapes, yet readers may be surprised to learn Chris is British and largely discovered the US through its literature.

Meanwhile, Irish crime writer Dervla McTiernan continues to set much of her work in her native Ireland, despite having called Australia home for the last 15 years.

Our very own Michael Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue) – whose Māori detective-led Hana Westerman series is set in Aotearoa but has enjoyed a strong international reception – chats to our globe-spanning panel about how place and culture are reflected in their books; the universal appeal of crime writing to appeal beyond borders and the art of conveying place, even from thousands of miles away.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Culture Ireland.

14 Ruth Shaw: A Life at the End of the World

10.00-11.00AM HUNUA ROOM

International bestseller The Bookseller at the End of the World brought together stories of running tiny bookshops in remote Fiordland with tales of owner Ruth Shaw’s remarkable life.

From sailing through the Pacific, being held up by pirates, working among drug addicts and prostitutes in Sydney’s King’s Cross, and all manner of personal traumas, losses and joys – it surprised, challenged and entertained legions of readers.

Now approaching 80, Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World continues the story of Shaw’s brave and fascinating life, including finding the love of her life and sailing the world together, along with all that running three tiny bookshops in New Zealand’s deep south brings.

She joins Elisabeth Easther to share her extraordinary story, and discuss the highs and lows of a life lived to the full.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patron Theresa Gattung.

15 FREE

Whānau: Reo Māori

Phrases to Share

10.00-11.00AM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Whether you’re at the beginning of your language learning journey, or looking for a way to build on what you already know, join te reo Māori teacher, translator and educator Donovan Te Ahunui Farnham (Ngāti Awa, Tūhoe) for an accessible and informal hour learning some key phrases and principles to start your Festival day.

A passionate believer that the best place to begin learning te reo Māori is wherever your whānau is, Te Ahunui will guide you through phrases perfect to share with those you love, to help sow the seed of the Māori language in your home life and see it bloom in the fertile soils of te ūkaipō.

All ages and abilities are welcome.

16 Becoming Aotearoa: A New History of New Zealand

10.00-11.00AM WAITĀ KERE ROOM

In the wake of 2019’s Christchurch mosque attacks, Professor Emeritus of History at Massey University Michael Belgrave took to his desk to write a short and responsive history of inclusion and exclusion in his country.

What emerged instead was a 600page book spanning 800 years, from the first Polynesian settlement to the 2023 election, and marking the first major national history of Aotearoa New Zealand to be published in 20 years.

He joins Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tahu) to discuss his Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted landmark work, and reflect on what the narratives of the past can tell us about our country’s present, and future.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Marsden Fund.

17 MASTERCLASS

John

Connell: Nature Writing

11.00AM-12.30PM WAIHOROTIU ROOM

Best-selling Irish author and farmer John Connell’s The Cow Book and Twelve Sheep have been described as “a hymn to the rituals of farming life” and “full of quiet wisdom” of the wonder of nature. Join him for a masterclass on nature writing and its vital role in our world today.

Including a brief overview of nature writing from Henry David Thoreau to the present day and drawing from his experience as a respected writer, Walkley Awardwinning investigative journalist and organic farmer in the Irish midlands, together you’ll explore why nature writing is a vital artform in the Anthropocene age and gain inspiration and guidance to write your own.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education and Culture Ireland.

royalsociety.org.nz

Stock image: Kauri female cone

WRITERS FESTIVAL TOP 5 MUST TRY’S

1 Browse Unity Books, named International Bookshop of the Year

2 Take in an exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery including The Roberston Gift: Paths through Modernity

3 Dine at a Metro Top 50 restaurant or try one of the city centre’s Iconic Auckland Eats

4 Enjoy a high tea like no other with a rooftop High Gin at The Churchill

5 A NEW LIGHT: Look out for Marcus McShane’s touring projections of Festival writers’ words lighting up surprising corners of the city. Thursday 15 – Sunday 18 May, from 6.45am and 5.10pm

For a full list of dining, shopping and arts & culture recommendations head to heartofthecity.co.nz

Unreel: A Life in Review

11.30AM-12.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Born to a Polish Holocaust survivor father and a 1950s Kiwi tradwife too busy to police her viewing, Diana Wichtel cut her teeth on the Golden Age of television. But in the 1960s, things fell apart. Diana’s fractured family left Canada and blew in to New Zealand, just missing the Beatles, and minus a father.

Diana watched television and was born again half a world away, and 20 years later walked into the smoky, clacking offices of the Listener where she became the country’s foremost television critic — loved and loathed, with the hate mail in seething capital letters to prove it.

Meanwhile, television’s sometimespale imitation — her real life — was beginning to unreel.

The award-winning reviewer and best-selling author of Driving to Treblinka joins Finlay Macdonald to discuss her brilliantly funny and achingly nostalgic Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted memoir of a life spent watching and writing.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13. Supported by ARA.

19 FREE Meet the Nordic Delegation

11.30AM-12.30PM

HUNUA ROOM

We are thrilled to welcome a stellar delegation of writers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland to AWF this year.

You’ll see them appearing across the Festival, but this is your chance to meet the full cohort.

From Norway: author of the bestselling Norwegian Wood; The Sister Bells Trilogy and Norwegian National Booksellers’ Award winner, Lars Mytting, and winner of Norway’s biggest literary prize and the PEN Translation Prize, Hanne Ørstavik (Love, Ti Amo; Stay With Me).

From Sweden: Sámi journalist and writer, and recipient of Sweden’s most distinguished literary prize, Elin Anna Labba, and author-illustrator duo of bestselling children’s series The Pinchers, Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson

From Denmark: award-winning novelist and essayist Mathilde Walter Clark, whose work includes Lone Star and A Blind Eye, which swept the Danish award circuit.

From Finland: “King of Helsinki Noir” and “the funniest writer in Europe” (The Times) known for his dark and funny thrillers, Antti Tuomainen

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

20 Notes from a Small Island: Hitching and Hiking Through New Zealand

11.30AM-12.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

From Bluff at the bottom of the South Island, to Cape Reinga at the North Island’s very top, award-winning journalist Naomi Arnold (Northbound ) spent nearly nine months walking the motuspanning Te Araroa.

NZ Columnist of the Year Joe Bennett ’s early 2000s hitchhiking adventures became the funny and internationally best-selling A Land of Two Halves: An Accidental Tour of New Zealand, a journey he recently opted to revisit – now as “a pensioner with an iffy prostate” – to see how the country has changed.

They join Liv Sisson to recount the twists and turns of their respective adventures, and reflect on what insights the journeys gave them to Aotearoa New Zealand today.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

21

Toi Te Mana: An HistoryIndigenous of Māori Art

11.30AM-12.30PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Ar t is the landmark work by Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) and Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) along with the late art historian Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (1943–2014; Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī).

Presenting a history of Māori art through an indigenous lens, it combines Kaupapa Māori with art history methodologies to rebalance a traditionally Eurocentric canon. The result is 600 pages spanning over 800 years of art practice, including whatu (weaving), moko (tattoo), whakairo (carving), whare (architecture), painting, photography and sculpture.

They join Nigel Borell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea) for a richly illustrated conversation, using ten taonga carefully selected from the book to guide audiences through this expansive history of Māori art’s rich and varied practices.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

22 FREE The Book Factory

12.00-9.00PM

AOTEA SQUARE

Publishing is an engine that drives the spread of ideas and turns thoughts into tangible works that can shape the future. The Book Factory - a high-energy, temporary publishing house where you make the book from start to finish –created by Marcus McShane and 5ever books, takes that energy and transforms it into something raw, real, and uniquely yours.

Every half hour, human energy, bicycle power and printed matter are transformed into the latest proof. Be part of our creative powerhouse in Aotea Square over the course of AWF and have a go at writing, editing, drawing, printing or pedalling your way to producing one-of-a-kind books, all completely people powered!

All Festival-goers, whatever their age, publishing or pedalling(!) experience are welcome to join in; and you can be part of the ‘Factory’ for however long you fancy.

MASTERCLASS

Tina

Makereti: The Story Is Wiser Than Us

1.00-2.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

The power in fiction, and even non-fiction, often comes from the potency of what we don’t know rather than what we do know. We can only be open to the little unintended miracles that occur in writing when we avoid over controlling material.

But how do we allow ourselves to fall into that abyss? And what happens if we go there? How much planning is needed in a novel, short story or non-fiction story, really?

In this masterclass, Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti RangatahiMatakore, Pākehā) will discuss the wisdom of writers who openly proclaim they don’t know what they’re doing, the miracles and discoveries in her own work, and a few ways to approach being open to the unknown in your own work, through taking part in writing exercises.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

Monty Soutar

1.00-2.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Kāwai: For Such a Time as This, the first in the Kāwai series by respected historian and author Monty Soutar (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) has been a familiar sight in the bestseller charts ever since its 2022 publication.

A recipient of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Māori and historical research, the series draws on Soutar’s lifetime of research into the whakapapa and oral traditions of his ancestors and brings pre-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand to life in a thrilling way.

He joins Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Maniapoto) to reflect on the first novel’s impact, and discuss the second: Kāwai: Tree of Nourishment. Spanning raids by musket-wielding war parties to heightened internecine warfare; from the influx of whalers, traders and Christian missionaries to the signing of The Treaty of Waitangi, it strikes hard and deep into the heart of the impact of colonisation on Māori.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by The Friends of the Turnbull Library.

25 The PlacesHappiest on Earth?

1.00-2.00PM

HUNUA ROOM

Ask an outsider to describe Aotearoa New Zealand or Nordic countries and similar themes will likely crop up: stunning landscapes, good quality of life, relative political stability. Indeed, all appear in the top 20 of Forbes ’ recent global happiness survey of more than 140 countries.

The reality for those living there, of course, is far more varied and nuanced. We bring together novelist Antti Tuomainen from Finland (the current reigning champion in the world happiness league), Sámi journalist and writer from Sápmi, Sweden, Elin Anna Labba , poet, youth-worker and novelist Dominic Hoey (1985 ) and debut author of the Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted Poorhara Michelle Rahurahu (Ngāti Rahurahu, Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whaoa) to hear what life behind the happiness headlines looks like, and what steps might bring perception and reality into closer alignment.

Chaired by Adam Dudding.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

26 Intersections Across the Moana: Storytellers and Their Villages

1.00-2.00PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Writers from the Moana often traverse genre, audience, discipline and institutional restrictions as they work to accurately represent the communities of which they are a part, and celebrate the villages they work within.

Join storytellers Dr MahMah Timoteo (Tohoa Tetini), Dr Nathan Rew and Marina Alefosio in conversation with Festival Guest Curator Zech Soakai , as they discuss the possibilities, challenges and rewards of working in, with, by, and for their communities, both in the stories that they share, and the tales that they write.

Part of Zech Soakai’s guest curatorship.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

27 The Ranks of the Rich

1.00-2.00PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

The heroine of Rachel Paris’ See How They Fall thinks paradise lies ahead when she marries into her husband’s wealthy family.

Rose Carlyle’s protagonist of No One Will Know thinks a pictureperfect couple will provide her safe sanctuary and a good life for her unborn child.

In Dervla McTiernan’s What Happened to Nina?, the parents of the missing Nina think her boyfriend’s family will help bring her home.

Time to think again.

Megan Nicol Reed meets three writers whose characters quickly discover that the elite can play by whole different rules.

And with all three authors’ prior legal careers bringing them into the orbit of the real world’s wealthy and powerful, we hear where the line between fact and fiction in their work truly lies…

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Culture Ireland.

28 FREE 2025 Honoured Writer: Gavin Bishop

2.30-3.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

When author and illustrator Gavin Bishop (Tainui, Ngāti Awa) accepted our 2025 Honoured Writer invitation, he remarked that it was “a huge compliment not only for me but all the other writers for children in this country”.

This generosity of spirit to the wider children’s literary community and his multi-decade career spent entertaining, educating and enchanting generations of readers makes him a hugely deserving recipient, and sees him join the AWF Honoured Writer stable alongside fellow greats Witi Ihimaera, C.K. Stead, Patricia Grace, Joy Cowley, Fiona Kidman and Anne Salmond.

In his rich career he has published 70 books; written for television, stage and ballet; and been garlanded with the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal for lifetime achievement; Nga Tohu a Ta Kingi Ihaka/Sir Kingi Ihaka Award for a lifetime contribution to Māori Art and Culture; The Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement; an Order of New Zealand Merit for services to literature and nominated for the Hans Christian Anderson Award, the world’s highest award for children’s literature.

Miriama Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga) meets him.

29 Stan Grant: Murriyang

2.30-3.30PM HUNUA ROOM

Stan Grant is one of Australia’s most distinguished journalists and broadcasters.

In 2023, intense racism surrounding his commentary of King Charles’ coronation saw him resign from his prime-time role at ABC, and Australia’s rejection of The Voice campaign months later delivered a huge additional blow to Grant, and all Aboriginal Australians.

Written at a point of personal and political reckoning, Murriyang is a moving response to fraught and dark times in the world, as well a meditation on the family, history, literature, theology, music and art that have shaped him – and from which he draws strength to move beyond anger and meet his country with kindness and forgiveness.

He talks to Moana Maniapoto (Te Arawa; Ngati Tūwharetoa) about his emotive personal journey of which this book was the result.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Australian High Commission.

30 Living Between Languages

2.30-3.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Booker Prize shortlisted Dutch author of The Safekeep Yael van der Wouden was raised trilingually, teaches comparative literature and moves between English, Hebrew and Dutch in her own life and work.

Best-selling author of The Bone Tree, Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Rauru, Ngāruahine) opted to write his new short story collection Pātea Boys in both English and te reo Māori, with readers able to flick between two languages.

Emirati spoken word poet Afra Atiq was born in the UAE to an Emirati father and a Japanese-American mother, and blends English, Arabic and French in her poems.

Susana Lei'ataua meets them (in English) to hear what being multilingual means for them as writers.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

31 Literature of Loss

2.30-3.30PM WAITĀ KERE ROOM

The couple at the centre of Damien Wilkins’ Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted novel and Newsroom's Best Book of 2024 Delirious navigate the latter years of a life that has been punctuated by extreme loss and grief.

In 2020, award-winning Norwegian writer Hanne Ørstavik lost her reallife Italian husband to cancer shortly after an intense love and marriage to him in her 50s. Their relationship during his illness and the realisation that she would be left to continue alone informed her touching book Ti Amo.

Claire Mabey meets two writers whose work asks: how does someone continue through the loss they most fear? And how might we meet the new versions of ourselves that may emerge from the experience?

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

32 FEATURE EVENT

Poetry

and Music

2.30-3.30PM HERALD THEATRE

Last held in 2023 in front of a packed-out and spellbound room, Poetry and Music makes its return to the Festival, once again pairing the four finalists in the poetry category of this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards with the brilliant musicians of the Ockham Collective (a charitable trust devoted to fostering creativity and connection in Tāmaki Makaurau).

The poets read and the musicians interpret, making for a mesmerising performance.

The full poet and musician line-up will be made available online once the shortlist is announced.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa.

Rumaan Alam: Crafting Dialogue

3.00-4.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

How and what people say – and what they don’t – enriches and advances a story.

Join National Book Award finalist and internationally best-selling author of Leave the World Behind and Entitlement Rumaan Alam for a masterclass on the role of dialogue in fiction.

Together you’ll engage in close reading of several writers including Helen Garner, Miriam Toews, John Updike and Jhumpa Lahiri, and discuss the different ways dialogue can be used as a tool to enhance a story, and how you go about letting characters speak for themselves in your own work.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

34 A. C. Grayling: Making Peace in the Culture Wars

4.00-5.00PM KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

It’s a febrile time in the world. We are facing some of the biggest issues of our time, and yet many of our spaces for social discourse feel like a tinderbox.

Whether it’s war, politics or something inconsequential, the internet is primed for furore. And the results can be horrifying – from online pile-ons and doxing to job loss and, in some cases, death.

But how did we get here?

Nuanced and historically grounded, in Discriminations: Making Peace in the Culture Wars, eminent philosopher A. C. Grayling searches for a middle ground.

Looking at the history of cancellation, from Ancient Greek ‘ostracism’ through hemlock cups, witch trials and the House of UnAmerican Activities, he offers a timely examination of the state of our public culture and the effect it’s having on intellectual discourse.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Antonia Fisher and Stuart Grieve.

35 The Last Secret Agent

4.00-5.00PM HUNUA ROOM

The Last Secret Agent is the remarkable true story of Kiwi Phyllis ‘Pippa’ Latour, an undercover spy during WWII and the last of 430 special operations agents who worked in occupied France to pass away.

Making her story even more compelling, for almost 70 years, Pippa told no one – not even her family – about her incredible feats during the war. When her achievements were revealed, she was awarded France’s highest military decoration.

Before her death at 102 she told her story to award-winning documentary producer and WWI and WWII specialist Jude Dobson , in a book that has since become an international bestseller.

Jude joins Emile Donovan in conversation to recount a clandestine life, and the process of being entrusted to tell it.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

A UCKLAN D WRITER S FE S T I VA L

7–10 May

Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre

The Firebird: Choreography Loughlan Prior Projections POW Studios Lighting design Jon Buswell Music Igor Stravinsky Set and costume design Tracy Grant Lord My Brilliant Career: Choreography Cathy Marston Video design Craig Wilkinson Music Matthew Hindson Set & costume design David Fleischer The Firebird with My Brilliant Career: Conductor Hamish McKeich

Take your writing to the next level

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The Friends have supported the work and activities of the Alexander Turnbull Library –the beating heart of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa – since 1939. We always welcome new members.

TITIRO KI MURI KIA WHAKATIKA A MUA look to the past to proceed into the future

PROUD SPONSORS OF AUCKLAND WRITERS FESTIVAL AUTHOR SESSIONS SINCE 2019

www.turnbullfriends.org.nz

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Kakariki, from Ship Cove and Teawaiti, Aug. 1839, by Charles Heaphy C-025-007

36

Books of Mana

4.00-5.00PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

“Māori are writers, thinkers and intellectuals. We always have been,” write the editors of Books of Mana, “for generations they recorded their knowledge through karanga, whaikōrero, mōteatea, karakia, purakau, waiata and whakatauki.”

Books of Mana builds on the work of editors Jacinta Ruru (Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui), Angela Wanhalla (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe) and Jeanette Wikaira (Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāpuhi), who curated Te Takarangi, a selected list of Māori-authored non-fiction books published since 1815 in partnership with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and the Royal Society Te Apārangi. It reveals the central place of over 200 years of print literacy within te ao Māori and vividly conveys how books are taonga, handed down through generations.

The editors join Miriama Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga) to discuss this important work and reflect on two centuries of Māori writing that has enriched lives and helped foster understanding of Māori experience, both at home and internationally.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Marsden Fund.

37 Life on the Land

4.00-5.00PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – American naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau Sonya Wilson meets two international authors whose work captures what living intentionally with the land means in their respective corners of the world.

Norway’s Lars Mytting’s writing about the ancient art of wood-fire and Scandinavia’s culture around firewood became the global bestseller Norwegian Wood.

Irishman John Connell’s popular The Cow Book and Twelve Sheep explore his experience of returning to the farming ways of his Irish family.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Culture Ireland and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

38 The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction 2025 Winner’s Interview

4.00-5.00PM

HERALD THEATRE

The freshly minted winner of the country’s biggest literary award, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction 2025 meets Thom Conroy to discuss their winning book and writing journey.

With the winner announced at the 2025 Ockham NZ Book Awards during Festival week, we can’t tell you yet who will be in the interviewee seat, but with recent prize alumni the calibre of Emily Perkins, Catherine Chidgey, Whiti Hereaka and Becky Manawatu, and chair of the Book Awards Trust Nicola Legat describing the longlistees as “some of our finest thinkers and most inventive writers”, you’re going to want a front row seat.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Becky Manawatu: Getting the First Draft Down

5.00-6.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

The best advice for a writer is to write, write, write.

But in this day and age, with so much competing for our attention, you need to be wildly compelled to invest the time and work in writing projects that promise nothing in return.

How do you create something, using only your imagination, language, laptop or pen, that will pull you back to the writing desk, time after time, and cut through all the noise and competing demands?

How do you inject enough life into your first pages to sustain the momentum required to get to the finished first draft?

Join the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction winner for Auē and Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted for Kataraina author Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) for a masterclass on remaining focused on your work and getting your first draft down.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

40 Ben Macintyre: Living History

5.30-6.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

With multi-million copies sold of Colditz, Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre is one of the world’s most esteemed and popular historians, as well as a columnist and associate editor at The Times, and with prior roles as their correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington.

According to master thriller writer Mick Herron, Macintyre’s books “set the gold standard for accurate historical reporting, but read like heart-pounding thrillers”, so it’s no wonder many have also reached new audiences via their riveting film and TV adaptations.

His latest book – The Siege – which recounts the SAS’ dramatic sixday hostage rescue mission at the Iranian Embassy in 1980 has been called “masterly” by the New York Times and been kept in the bestseller lists by his legions of readers.

He speaks with Finlay Macdonald

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons

Susan & Gavin Walker and the Michael King Writers Centre.

41 Laws & Legacy: Confronting Colonisation

5.30-6.30PM

HUNUA ROOM

Te Tiriti o Waitangi has rarely been far from headlines this year. The Treaty Principles Bill prompted 300,000 written submissions and November’s hīkoi was one of the largest protests Parliament has seen.

For the past decade, leading international lawyer Philippe Sands (The Last Colony) has been involved in the landmark case that secured the recognition of Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago, thus ending Britain’s colonial rule in Africa.

Aroha Harris (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) is a leading Māori scholar, editor of Maranga! Maranga! Maranga! and a former Waitangi Tribunal member. Claire Charters (Ngāti Whakaue, Tuwharetoa, Ngāpuhi, Tainui) speaks around the globe on international and constitutional law and Indigenous peoples.

They discuss the living history of colonial rule, and the realities and complexities of the legal side of decolonisation efforts with Max Harris.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Legal Research Foundation and the University of Auckland’s Law School.

42 Lone Stars and North Stars: Navigating Home

5.30-6.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

When Mathilde Walter Clark ’s stepfather dies in Denmark, she is plagued by worries about the death of her American father on the other side of the Atlantic. Lone Star is the result of her desire to catalogue her love and memories of him, and of navigating distances between the Danish and American strands of her life.

In Peter Godwin’s Exit Wounds, his UK-born mother who became a renowned doctor in Zimbabwe lies dying in his sister’s London home. Her final days prompt Godwin’s reflections of his own culturecrossing life: a Zimbabwean childhood, a global war reportage career, and an American life with transatlantic children.

With Georgina Godwin they discuss the difficulties of finding a sense of home in adulthood when ‘home’ is a disparate place, and how losing a parent brings this into even sharper focus.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

43 Space: Nature Writing’s New Frontier?

5.30-6.30PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Picture a novel set in space, and your mind will likely go to thoughts of sci-fi. But 2024 Booker Prize winner her International Space Stationset novel Orbital as existing in a genre much closer to home: nature writing.

“Could I evoke the beauty of that vantage point with the care of a nature writer? … Could I pull off a sort of space pastoral?” she asked herself in its writing.

FAMILY EVENT

She meets Pip Adam to discuss the craft – and possibilities – of this new frontier of nature writing.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. 44

6.00-7.15PM HERALD THEATRE

Our adult programme kicks off with an Opening Night Gala, but why should the grown-ups get all the fun? Introducing our first big opening night for our smallest bookworms: a fast-paced night of thrills, joy and creative chaos.

Put simply: yes and yes. During the novel’s 24 hours, her characters observe their silent blue planet from above in awe, wonder and rich detail as they spin past continents, cycle through seasons, and watch glaciers, deserts, mountains and oceans come into view beneath them.

Watch illustrators Toby Morris and Alba Gil Celdrán in an epic illustration battle, see if Steph Matuku (Ngāti Tama; Ngāti Mutunga) can weave your wildest ideas into a story against the clock, join a lively jewel heist with Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson , and celebrate 2025 Honoured Writer, Gavin Bishop (Tainui; Ngāti Awa) and his incredible legacy. Hosted by comedy queen, Kura Forrester (Ngāti Porou).

All done before bedtime! Best suited for ages 5+.

All tickets $16.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

45 At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China

7.00-8.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

The New York Times diplomatic correspondent and son of Chinese immigrants to the US Edward Wong grew up in a family of secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants, rarely speaking of home or his years in the People’s Liberation Army under Mao.

When Wong became the paper’s Beijing bureau chief, the role brought both discoveries of his father’s own mysterious past and rare insider’s insights to a nation undergoing decades of momentous change: astounding economic boom and global expansion; Xi Jinping’s nationalistic rule; ethnic struggles in Xinjiang and Tibet; and prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong.

The resulting book At the Edge of Empire is at once a moving chronicle of a family and an essential work for understanding China today.

The Washington Post ’s Asia-Pacific editor Anna Fifield meets him.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

46 FREE Tell the Tale, Win the Crowd

7.00-8.00PM

HUNUA ROOM

In the 15-year history of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Poetry Slam, only three Pasifika poets have taken the coveted title.

With Samoan poet Talia Stanley (2024) as the most recent champion, there’s no better moment to bring together all three Pasifika poets who have held the title.

Joining Talia for a performance and celebration of their oratorical excellence are former winners and beloved poets Eric Soakai (2019) and Daisy Lavea-Timo (2017).

Guest curator Zech Soakai then joins the poets in a conversation about their powerful storytelling and how it has won over crowds from all over Aotearoa New Zealand.

Part of Zech Soakai’s guest curatorship.

47 Unsettling Fictions

7.00-8.00PM WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Queen of Latin American horror Mariana Enriquez ( A Sunny Place for Shady People) has been praised for her short stories which capture how “horror can hum underneath the everyday” ( The Times).

Catherine Chidgey remarked that what sets Ockham NZ Book Award shortlisted author Kirsty Gunn (Pretty Ugly ) apart is her ability to anatomise “the dissonance between what is seen and what is felt” in her “darkly glittering” short fiction.

Brought together from Argentina and Scotland to an Aotearoa New Zealand stage, they talk to Lee Murray about how they create maximum menace and unease via this shortest of forms.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Scottish Books International.

Harriet Walter: All the World’s a Stage

8.30-9.45PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Harriet Walter is one of the world’s most accomplished Shakespearean actors, as well as a multiple Primetime Emmy Award nominee for her screen performances, which include Lady Caroline in Succession, Deborah in Ted Lasso, Dasha in Killing Eve, Lady Shackleton in Downton Abbey, and Clementine Churchill in The Crown

Her decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company have seen her play most of Shakespeare’s leading women. Despite her immense admiration for Shakespeare’s mind, words and empathy for his female characters, the fact remains that his women rarely take centre stage, have far fewer lines, and their function in the plot is solely in relation to a man.

So began a project that would become She Speaks!: What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said. In it, she imagines in ‘Shakespearean’ verse and prose what, with more lines and stage time, we’d have heard the Bard’s leading women say.

What did Gertrude long to say about her husband (Hamlet)? Why did Lady Macbeth feel she deserved to be Queen (Macbeth)? What did Juliet's nurse feel after Juliet’s death (Romeo & Juliet), and how did Olivia’s crush cause her to question her sexuality (Twelfth Night)?

She sits down with Jennifer Ward-Lealand to discuss her brilliant career, reflect on a life embedded in Shakespeare’s work, and perform her fresh takes on his women’s words.

Earlybird $45.50; Standard $49.50; Patrons $39.50; Students $21.

Supported by Platinum Bold Patron Anna Gibbons

49 The SalonSpice

9.00-10.00PM HERALD THEATRE

Wind down (or ramp up) your Festival day at our inaugural Spice Salon as the greatest writers of some of the steamiest scenes gather for readings of their work.

Funny, serious, smutty, lighthearted or poignant, it’s all here.

Guest readers include Torrey Peters (Stag Dance; Detransition, Baby ), Yael van der Wouden ( The Safekeep), Samuel Te Kani (Ngāpuhi) author of Please, Call Me Jesus ; Kaliane Bradley ( The Ministry of Time) and Hanne Ørstavik (Stay with Me).

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Total

Secondary

5th Floor, Aotea Centre

Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 May

SATURDAY

10.00-10.30AM

Wicked Lambs and Witchy Troubles!

SATURDAY

11.30AM-12.00PM

Dance Like the Atua

Cackle and sing along with (Ngāpuhi; Te Aupōuri) as she spins the wickedly funny tale of The Witch of Maketu. Auē! Our witch is feeling grumpy and stink. The twelve juicy lambs she’s kept for her winter kai are bleating all day and night and she can’t get any beauty sleep! Get ready for a bewitching session packed with mischief and waiata.

SATURDAY

10.45-11.15AM

Animal Escapades

Gavin Bishop (Tainui; Ngāti Awa) is one of our most treasured children’s authors, and this year's Festival’s Honoured Writer. Join him on a delightful reading adventure from The Gavin Bishop Treasury with a seadreaming rabbit, a bear who refuses to hibernate, and his funny take on The Three Little Pigs. Plus, test your building skills with play bricks and see if you can build a wolf-proof house!

SATURDAY

10.00AM-3.30PM

Back by popular demand, we invite you to join dancers Abbie Rogers and Madi Tumataroa from Atamira Dance Company and move your way through Gavin Bishop’s (Tainui; Ngāti Awa) best-selling and awardwinning book, ATUA: Māori Gods and Heroes. You will transform into atua and experience storytelling through dance and music to bring this magical book to life. All ages and abilities are welcome.

Make a Mean Zine

SATURDAY 12.15-12.45PM

Take the Mic

Now is your time to take to the stage in this open mic session. Children of all ages are welcome to step up to the mic, test their latest material and share their best story, joke, poem or song. We’re all ears!

Jump into the zine scene! Get inventive at our hands-on making station, where you and your whānau can create your own unique zine and badge to take away, and enjoy an eclectic collection of one-of-a-kind zines from the 2024 Best of the Fest awards. Hosted by Auckland Zinefest

pukapukaadventures

SATURDAY

1.30-2.00PM

pukapukaadventures

Supported by Freemasons Foundation

Criminally Fun!

Meet the Pinchers — three generations of thieves, but son Theo doesn’t fit in; he can’t lie or cheat to save his life! In this interactive session, Swedish author/ illustrator duo, Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson share how they create thrilling and funny stories and illustrations. Get ready for an adventure about heists, family and finding your place.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

SATURDAY

2.15-2.45PM

Construct a Story

Supported by Freemasons Foundation

A Dreampanion Quest

Transport yourself into Graci Kim’s exhilarating new series Dreamslinger, where dragons and phoenixes roam the skies, meals magically appear based on your mood, and your dreams literally come to life. Explore this enchanting world by figuring out your very own dreampanion, discovering their seasonbility — special powers tied to the elements — and giving them a name. In this realm, anything is possible….

Ready to construct a story together? Here’s your chance to build something amazing! Join author Claire Mabey (The Raven’s Eye Runaways) as she guides you through an interactive story-making process. You’ll choose from a list of wild ideas to propel the plot, while illustrator Toby Morris live-sketches your unfolding tale. Unleash your imagination and explore the art of storytelling!

SATURDAY

10.00AM-3.30PM ALSO

10.00AM-1.00PM

Action Stations

We have activities galore on our family floor!

Add your dragon scale to our giant dragon mural by Kate Talbot Hunt out the Pinchers’ golden diamonds. Snuggle up with a book in our cosy reading caves. Get crafty at the activity table and make a bookmark or thread a friendship bracelet.

Copy some famous book cover art, add it to our gallery and be in to win prizes.

Celebrate The Moomins 80th anniversary and make a Moomin house.

Come get your creativity and craft on, all weekend.

SUNDAY

10.00-10.30AM

Rock Solid

Ever had a feeling that hits like a massive rock? Charlie and Dad know that weight, but together they figure out how to break it down. From the creators of The Bomb and Dazzlehands, Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata), comes A Guide to Rocks — a lively handbook for tackling big emotions. Get ready for an animated storytelling event with live illustration, music and props!

Sunday Rātapu

18 Mei

SUNDAY

10.45-11.15AM

11.30AM-12.30PM

Weaving Wonders

Nanny Rina is a master weaver, who can cleverly create all kinds of nets! Join us for a heart-warming session with award-winning MāoriPasifika storyteller Qiane MatataSipu (Te Waiohua ki Te Ahiwaru me Te Ākitai; Waikato, Ngāpuhi; Ngāti Pikiao; Cook Islands), as she shares Ngā Kupenga a Nanny Rina / Nanny Rina’s Amazing Nets in both te reo Māori and English. Tamariki will then have the chance to learn how to weave and create a net together.

Collage Creation Corner

Experience a creative upcycling session with our friends from The ReCreators. You’ll craft your own unique collage art using a lasercut animal or character inspired by the books featured in Pukapuka Adventures. With a variety of materials at your fingertips, you'll bring your creature or character to life in this hands-on, inventive

A cat is shocked by its talking feet. A tiger devours a dentist. A herd of elephants attend a circus. Watch Olivia Tennet (Kiri and Lou) as she performs Joy Cowley’s A Lot of Silly Expect absurd tongue-twisters, silly stories to tickle your funny bone, a mad costume box, and the chance to create your own nonsensical rhyme. Joy Cowley can’t be with us in person, but come along and enjoy a special video message from the writer herself.

10.00AM-1.00PM

10.00AM-3.30PM

Action Stations

We have activities galore on our family floor! Add your dragon scale to our giant dragon mural by Hunt out the Pinchers’ golden diamonds. Snuggle up with a book in our cosy reading caves. Get crafty at the activity table and make a bookmark or thread a friendship bracelet. Copy some famous book cover art, add it to our gallery and be in to win prizes. Celebrate The Moomins 80th anniversary and make a Moomin house. Come get your creativity and craft on, all weekend.

pukapukaadventures

Supported by Freemasons Foundation

SATURDAY

9.30-10.00AM AOTEA SQUARE

How to Draw a Dragon

Everybody knows what a dragon looks like, right? Wings, fire-breathing… but what if dragons wear roller skates and shoot marshmallows from their tails? Join author and illustrator Kate Talbot to explore zany ideas and draw your own mini dragon. Add it to Kate’s giant mural, growing with creative dragon scales throughout the weekend for all Festival-goers to enjoy.

SATURDAY

EVERY 30 MINUTES, 10.30AM-1.00PM AOTEA SQUARE

Granny McFlitter Champion Knitter

Enter Granny McFlitter’s cosy caravan as author Heather Haylock brings her wild-weather adventure to life. When a ‘purler’ of a storm tears apart the campground, champion knitter Granny McFlitter is determined to stitch it back together. Enjoy this delightful and humorous story in Granny’s very own caravan, then try your hand at knitting or join our knitting circle if you’re already a pro!

TICKETED FAMILY EVENTS

6.00-7.15PM

Our adult programme kicks off with an Opening Night Gala, but why should the grown-ups get all the fun? Introducing our first big opening night for our smallest bookworms: a fast-paced night of thrills, joy and creative chaos. Watch illustrators Toby Morris and Alba Gil Celdrán in an epic illustration battle, see if Steph Matuku (Ngāti Tama; Ngāti Mutunga) can weave your wildest ideas into a story against the clock, join a lively jewel heist with Anders Sparring and Per Gustavsson , and celebrate 2025 Honoured Writer, Gavin Bishop (Tainui; Ngāti Awa) and his incredible legacy. Hosted by comedy queen, Kura Forrester (Ngāti Porou). All done before bedtime!

Best suited for ages 5+.

All tickets $16.

Supported by Storylines and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

TICKETED FAMILY EVENTS

SATURDAY

Nevermoor Unveiled

11.30AM-12.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Step into the magical world of Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor series, where extraordinary adventures and unforgettable characters await.

Join Jessica in conversation with Claire Mabey as they discuss the heart-pounding journey of Morrigan Crow — a cursed girl who defies fate and uncovers a hidden world of wonder.

Be among the first to get the inside scoop on Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow, the latest chapter in Morrigan’s odyssey, and learn about the creative process behind the series.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or new to Nevermoor, come immerse yourself in the magic!

“Townsend’s intensely cinematic writing, quirky humour and superior world-building conjure a genuinely fresh take on magical fantasy” – The Bookseller.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Child/Students $13.

SATURDAY SUNDAY

The Tiny Show

SAT 2.00-2.45PM

HERALD THEATRE

SUN 9.30-10.15AM

HERALD THEATRE

Welcome to The Tiny Show! Meet a quiet clown and her troupe of toys as she recounts fables and tales. This clown can sing, dance and eat pink wafers like no one else.

Encounter a jealous witch, a lonely wolf and a very sorry piggy. Be dazzled with sassy looks and spine-tingling harmonies. Grab a teddy and lean in close for a tiny, intimate theatre show for the whole family to enjoy.

Suitable for Deaf and hearing audiences aged 3 yea rs and up.

Performed by Tomasin FisherJohnson

All tickets $16.

SUNDAY

Andy Griffiths: From Treehouse to Unlimited Adventure

11.30AM-12.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Dive into the imagination of one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors, whose humour has helped legions of kids fall in love with reading.

Andy Griffiths will take you through some of his favourite moments from his much-loved Treehouse series — which began with 13 storeys and grew to an incredible 169 — packed with outrageous features like maneating sharks, a 78-flavour ice cream parlour, and the world’s most powerful whirlpool.

Always brimming with new ideas, Andy will also introduce his new series, YOU & ME and The Land of Lost Things, one of his most thrilling, and mind-bending, adventures yet! Join us to celebrate the magic and madness of a children’s literature legend.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Child/Students $13.

Supported by the Australian High Commission.

Antony Elworthy

Joe Bennett

Photo Credit: Stuff Ltd

Hana Tapiata

Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku

Naomi Arnold

Michael Bennett

Ali Mau

Photo Credit: Luke Harvey

Trump: The Next Four Years The 2024 Booker Prize Winner

The Tiny Show A Waiata in an hour He Waiata i te Hāora Kotahi

Mariana Enriquez

Lemn Sissay

50 FREE A New Light

6.45AM & 5.10PM STARTING AOTEA SQUARE AND CLOCKWISE LOOP THROUGH CBD

From opening word to closing lines; daybreak to nightfall; first event to last, the events at AWF bookend a world of stories each day.

But we know Festival-goers’ journeys don’t start and end at the Aotea Centre’s doors.

From filing through the city on early Festival mornings with the fizz of anticipation for what’s ahead; to the satisfied journey home at the end of each day, filled with new ideas, stories and connections, the Festival sets in motion a beautiful reverberation of words and fresh perspectives throughout the city.

To celebrate the city of stories that Tāmaki becomes during AWF, award-winning designer Marcus McShane will weave his bike-bound projector through the city’s streets and alleyways, casting on to its architecture Festival writers’ words that capture the beauty of daybreak and nightfall, each Festival day.

*This is a cycle-led projection route around the inner city that can be followed at walking pace. The full route will last about 1 hour, and attendees are welcome to join for its entirety, or drop in/ out. Projection locations will be announced closer to the Festival

51-56 FREE Kōrero Corner

51 9.15-9.45am

53 12.30-1.00pm

Local Lists: Hachette

Aotearoa New Zealand-based publishers share upcoming titles to look out for in the year ahead. Join these daily sessions to be first in the know!

54 2.00-2.30pm

Worldwide Book Club: Sámi Literature

The journalist and writer from Sápmi, Sweden, Elin Anna Labba introduces you to literature published by Sámi writers and her work at the indigenous Sámi Authors’ Centre.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

55 3.30-4.00pm

Local Lists: Penguin Books New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand basedpublishers share upcoming titles to look out for in the year ahead. Join these daily sessions to be first in the know!

Atua Wāhine Flow

Start the morning with Atua Wāhine author Hana Tapiata (Tūhourangi, Ngāti Tarāwhai, Ngāti Hinemihi) as she leads you through a gentle morning vinyasa and meditation while sharing some of her inspiration and whakaaro behind the book. All abilities welcome.

52 11.00-11.30am

Debut of the Day: Flora

Feltham

Flora Feltham reads from her Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted essay collection Bad Archive and discusses what it's like to craft art from life.

56 5.00-5.30pm

Worldwide Book Club: Books of India

Spoor Books is a publisher, community platform and bookshop that aims to connect readers with non-Western imaginaries. This relaxed session introduces a selection of curious, independent and radical books from India.

Kirsty Gunn: Two Sides to Every Story

9.00-10.30AM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

Within the most interesting stories is another that wants to get out.

In this highly practical and creative workshop, Kirsty Gunn will draw on the double lives contained within her latest collection of short stories, the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted Pretty Ugly, to deliver a writing class that will have you thinking about and writing the ‘other’ story that lies beneath your own.

Be prepared to dig deep! $65.

Supported by Scottish Books International and University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

58 FREE The Book Factory

10.00AM-5.00PM AOTEA SQUARE

Publishing is an engine that drives the spread of ideas and turns thoughts into tangible works that can shape the future. The Book Factory - a high-energy, temporary publishing house where you make the book from start to finish –created by Marcus McShane and 5ever books, takes that energy and transforms it into something raw, real, and uniquely yours.

Every half hour, human energy, bicycle power and printed matter are transformed into the latest proof. Be part of our creative powerhouse in Aotea Square over the course of AWF and have a go at writing, editing, drawing, printing or pedalling your way to producing one-of-a-kind books, all completely people powered!

All Festival-goers, whatever their age, publishing or pedalling(!) experience are welcome to join in; and you can be part of the ‘Factory’ for however long you fancy.

59 FREE Lemn Sissay: Let the Light Pour In

10.00-11.00AM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

“An experiment in hope” is how accomplished spoken word poet, BAFTA-nominated author, activist, performer and Sunday Times number one best-selling author Lemn Sissay describes his decadelong practice of composing a four-line poem each morning as dawn breaks.

Life-affirming, witty and full of wonder, each short piece then travels the globe via a huge social media network to reach people starting their days across the world.

It’s poetry which Jeanette Winterson describes as “hard-won light smashed out of darkness like gold from the rock … swallow one like an espresso and go”.

Join this master wordsmith and performer in his first visit to AWF for an uplifting hour of defiant joy to begin your Festival day.

60 How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive

10.00-11.00AM

HUNUA ROOM

Strongmen are rising. Democracies are faltering. How does tyranny end? Tyrants project invincibility, but the reality is starkly different. Whether it's their inner circle turning against them or resentment of elites in the military; masses alienated by cronyism or revolutionaries plotting in exile, tyrants always have more enemies than friends. And when they fall, tyrants don't quietly retire: they face exile, prison or death and what happens in their aftermath can change the fate of a nation.

In How Tyrants Fall German political scientist Marcel Dirsus offers astute insights into the worlds and minds of dictators, the twisted systems that keep them on top, and the ways even the most ruthless despots can be toppled.

He joins Toby Manhire to share his insights from meeting with coup leaders, dissidents and soldiers from around the world; discuss the complex nature of strongman rule, and imagine what a roadmap to a world with fewer of them might be.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by The Goethe-Institut.

61 Yael van der Wouden: The Safekeep

10.00-11.00AM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

The judges of the 2024 Booker Prize, of which Dutch author Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep was the only shortlisted first novel, described it as “a remarkable debut about obsession and loss…[where] the author draws us into a world as carefully calibrated as a Dutch still-life.”

Set in a rural village in the Netherlands, 15 years after WWII, the quiet life of a lonely young woman is upended by the arrival of an outsider, the “graceless young girlfriend” of her brother.

In yearning prose van der Wouden weaves queer desire and domestic claustrophobia with the long tail of history.

Jenna Todd (Kāi Tahu) joins her to discuss the novel’s success and her expert crafting of a vivid past.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by ARA.

62 Tina Makereti and Becky Manawatu

10.00-11.00AM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Set in a near future where ecological devastation has made parts of the world almost uninhabitable, The Mires by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti RangatahiMatakore, Pākehā) weaves “the damp and nebulous borders of [the] swamp” with the lives of her three female protagonists.

An unyielding swamp encroaches in Becky Manawatu’s (Ngāi Tahu) Kataraina, the much-anticipated follow-up to her Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction winning Auē. As described in The Spinoff, “Manawatu’s effortless figurative language is intertwined with the languages of science: lush ecology, resources and knowledge sits in the deep fabric of the environment.”

These two formidable wāhine Māori writers discuss their Ockham NZ Book Awards recognised novels and the call of the landscape with Emma Weihipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou).

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Peter Godwin: Mastering Memoir

11.00AM-12.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

All stories are universal, if you know where to look and how to tell them.

Peter Godwin is the author of the award-winning memoirs Mukiwa, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun and his latest, Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars, and has taught writing at Wesleyan and Columbia universities.

Join him for a masterclass that will dissect the difference between memoir and autobiography; and explore how family memoir can be a vehicle through which to write about broader issues and topics.

Along with practical tips around avoiding writer’s block, imposter syndrome, fear and cliché, you’ll explore how to find your voice to tell a family story that’s engaging to a broad audience.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

64 Trump: The Next Four Years

11.30AM-12.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

When AWF 25 opens its doors, it will mark six months since Donald Trump’s historic political comeback to be announced as the 47th US president.

At the time of writing this in early February – with the inauguration bunting barely down – we’ve already seen immigration and diversity crackdowns, a judiciary under pressure, an upending of US Middle East policy, threats of a trade war, breakneck moves in tech and social media and an attempt to buy Greenland… The list truly goes on.

Here to help make sense of Trump’s second term’s dizzying start, and offer their thoughts on what lies ahead for both Aotearoa New Zealand and the world are our expert panel: New York Times diplomatic correspondent Edward Wong, top international lawyer Philippe Sands and The Washington Post’s Asia Pacific editor Anna Fifield

Chaired by The Globalist’s Georgina Godwin

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Legal Research Foundation and the University of Auckland’s Law School.

65 Landmark LGBTQ+ Literature

11.30AM-12.30PM

HUNUA ROOM

With its depiction of gay sexual freedom before the scourge of AIDS, major British novelist Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming Pool Library shattered publishing’s closet door on its 1988 release and his Booker Prize win for The Line of Beauty in 2004 helped propel LGBTQ+ narratives into the literary mainstream.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku’s early short stories about a young Māori girl discovering her sexuality in Tahuri broke new ground as part of a lifelong career as a trailblazer for Māori rights, and the Women’s and Gay Liberation movements.

US author Torrey Peters’ 2021 Detransition, Baby was met with critical success for its tender exploration of gender, parenthood, love and trans life and was hailed as “the first great trans realist novel”. They join Chris Tse (Out Here) to reflect on their respective landmark works; discuss what they capture of their time and contexts; and consider literature’s role in responding to or shaping social attitudes to queer life.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

66

FAMILY EVENT

Nevermoor Unveiled

11.30AM-12.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Step into the magical world of Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor series, where extraordinary adventures and unforgettable characters await.

Join Jessica in conversation with Claire Mabey as they discuss the heart-pounding journey of Morrigan Crow — a cursed girl who defies fate and uncovers a hidden world of wonder.

Be among the first to get the inside scoop on Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow, the latest chapter in Morrigan’s odyssey, and learn about the creative process behind the series.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or new to Nevermoor, come immerse yourself in the magic!

“Townsend’s intensely cinematic writing, quirky humour and superior world-building conjure a genuinely fresh take on magical fantasy” – The Bookseller.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Child/Students $13.

67 The Call of the Wild

11.30AM-12.30PM WAITĀ KERE ROOM

In the soft morning light, the estranged father in French writer Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s The Son of Man drives his family away from life as they know it and into a dilapidated, isolated house in the forested mountains beyond.

A dangerous puma stalks the cold highlands of Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott ’s Dusk. Two siblings must traverse a wild and haunted landscape in search of its bounty, soon discovering there is more to the land and its people than they imagined.

Widely regarded as France and Australia’s leading next generation literary writers, Del Amo and Arnott join Simon Wilson to discuss their intriguing novels that conjure both the wildness of the landscape, and the dark thread of ancestral violence that runs through them.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by ARA and the Embassy of France.

68 FREE North to South: Stories, Songs and Voices of the Land

11.30AM-12.30PM HERALD THEATRE

Shetland and Aotearoa are two of the world's most northern and southern islands.

Each have an indigenous tongue and culture that is being revived and fought for and each, at the far north and south of the world, are vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In a special commission, we’ve brought together the musician and Highland Book Prize-winning Shetlandic poet of Moder Dy Roseanne Watt and acclaimed tangata whenua poet, writer and author of Slowing the Sun: Essays Nadine Anne Hura (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi).

Fresh from a joint residency to wānanga and co-create in the beautiful environs of Wild Forest Estate, Northland – land nurtured by mana whenua Te Roroa for generations – they present a multidisciplinary showcase that explores the challenges and shared concerns of their respective islands' futures.

Supported by a British Council Connections Through Culture grant.

Damien Wilkins: Writing Grief

1.00-2.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

How can fiction approach grief?

In this workshop we’ll explore various ways fiction can dramatise moments of extreme personal loss. How can we give this universal experience a feeling of newness? How can we shape our fictional scenes to give grief emotional force on the page?

Join novelist and creative writing teacher Damien Wilkins, whose latest novel the Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted Delirious has been praised for its depiction of characters dealing with profound loss.

If you’re already working on fiction which deals with grief, please bring a short extract, although there may not be time to discuss everyone’s work. Also bring tissues.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

70 2025: A Billionaire’s Playground?

1.00-2.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Money has long made the world go round, but with the world’s richest man taking a seat next to Trump in the White House; tech, AI and social media companies seemingly growing exponentially richer and more powerful; and the world’s billionaires looking to different territories (Aotearoa New Zealand itself included) and into space for both power and natural resources, have we entered a whole new era of the world as a playground for the super-rich?

Renowned philosopher A. C. Grayling (Who Owns the Moon?), major US novelist whose books expertly dissect wealth and class Rumaan Alam (Entitlement) and political scientist Marcel Dirsus (How Tyrants Fall) join Toby Manhire to discuss how we got here and what might face us next.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by The Goethe-Institut.

71 Let the Dead Speak Kia Kōrero te Hunga Mate

1.00-2.00PM HUNUA ROOM

Writing about ancestors or other figures from our pasts necessitates a collision between history and imagination. How much dramatic license can the creator have – be they novelist, historian, poet, musician or filmmaker – in depicting events they weren’t present at, in imagining conversations they never heard, in evoking the thoughts and emotions of those they never met?

Esteemed historian Hirini Kaa (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata) meets a dynamic range of creatives to discuss how they’ve navigated these very questions in their work: Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa), winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction for Kurangaituku; Tim Worrall (Ngāi Tūhoe), filmmaker and author of 2024’s Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End, set during the New Zealand Wars; and singer, poet, musician and author Ariana Tikao (Kāi Tahu).

Ka tuhia ana he kōrero mō ngā tūpuna, mō ētahi kē atu rānei nō ngā rā o mua, ka tūtuki rawa ko

Daniel Oberhaus (2018)

te hītori me te pohewatanga. He pēhea nei te nui o te awe auaha ka taea e te kaiwaihanga - ahakoa ringatuhi pakimaero, hītori, toikupu rānei, ahakoa ringa puoro, ahakoa kaiwaihanga kiriata rānei - nō rātou ka whakaatu ake i ētahi kaupapa kīhai i wheakotia e rātou, nō rātou ka pohewa ki ētahi whakawhitinga kōrero kīhai i rangona e rātou, nō rātou ka whakaara ake i ngā whakaaro me ngā kare ā-roto o tētahi hunga kīhai i tūtakina e rātou?

Ka tūtaki atu te pou hītori rangatira, a Hirini Kaa (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata) ki tētahi kāhui ringa auaha hihiri ki te wānanga i te āhua i whakautua ai ēnei momo pātai i ā rātou mahi: ko te ringatuhi pakimaero tērā, ko te toa hoki o te tohu Jann Medlicott Acorn mō te kōrero paki, i tana pukapuka, i a Kurangaituku, ko Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa); ko te kaiwaihanga kiriata me te kaituhi tērā o Ka Whawhai Tonu - Struggle Without End nō te tau 2024, he mea whakaatu i te wā o ngā riri whenua ki Aotearoa, ko Tim Worrall (Ngāi Tūhoe); otirā, ko te kaiwaiata, ko te ringatuhi toikupu, ko te ringa puoro, ko te kaituhituhi hoki tērā, ko Ariana Tikao (Kāi Tahu).

Part of the He Ahi Kei Taku Korokoro curation by Michael and Matariki Bennett.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

72 Writing to Remember: Tina Makereti and Flora Feltham

1.00-2.00PM LIMELIGHT ROOM

Tina Makereti’s (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti RangatahiMatakore, Pākehā) highly anticipated first work of non-fiction This Compulsion in Us blends essays about her craft and compulsion to write with reflective memoir recounting her unconventional upbringing and the many tīpuna who guide her.

In her Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted essay collection Bad Archive Flora Feltham mines her memory as she attempts to “keep the scraps of the past from the bin of today”. A pressed flower found in the diary of a 19th-century teenager nor the Newtown New World of her childhood escape her delicately executed project of personal archiving.

With Jenna Todd (Kāi Tahu) they discuss their collections and reflect on how they use the form to uncover personal histories and reckon with the fallibility of memory.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

73

Mariana Enriquez

1.00-2.00PM WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Nobel Prize for Literature winner Kazuo Ishiguro recently hailed the Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez as “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time”.

It’s easy to see why. Her short story collections: A Sunny Place for Shady People, Things We Lost in the Fire and International Booker Prizeshortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed are widely lauded and her tenacious journalism interrogating Argentina’s dark side is equally well regarded. Additionally, her Premio Herralde Prize-winning novel Our Share of Night, blends the literary with horror, history with folklore, and the personal with political to create unsettling, interrogating and gripping narratives.

Whether you like your writing on the dark side or not, don’t miss this chance to hear from one of Latin America’s leading contemporary writers in her first visit to the Festival. Chaired by Pip Adam

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Patricia & Gary Holden.

The Tiny Show

SAT 2.00-2.45PM

HERALD THEATRE

Welcome to The Tiny Show! Meet a quiet clown and her troupe of toys as she recounts fables and tales. This clown can sing, dance and eat pink wafers like no one else.

Encounter a jealous witch, a lonely wolf and a very sorry piggy. Be dazzled with sassy looks and spinetingling harmonies. Grab a teddy and lean in close for a tiny, intimate theatre show for the whole family to enjoy.

Suitable for Deaf and hearing audiences aged 3 years and up.

Performed by Tomasin FisherJohnson .

All tickets $16.

75 Kaliane Bradley: The Ministry of Time

2.30-3.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

British-Cambodian writer and editor Kaliane Bradley’s time-travel romcom debut The Ministry of Time has been one of the biggest hits of the publishing year.

Set in the near future and imagining civil servants who are paired with figures from the past to act as their “bridge” into modern life, it’s a genre-bending mix of science fiction, romance, thriller and comedy that excites and entertains, while also tackling big themes including colonisation, climate and migration.

Eleanor Catton called it “outrageously brilliant”, it’s been listed as a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair and Barack Obama among countless others, and a major BBC adaptation will soon reach our screens.

Not a bad result for a book that began life as a work of fan fiction written for Bradley’s friends during lockdown.

Saraid de Silva meets her to discuss the book and its phenomenal trajectory.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

76 Bringing the Past to Life: Researching Historical Fiction

2.30-3.30PM HUNUA ROOM

They thrill readers, critics and prize-juries alike, but what goes into creating the rich, historical worlds of Monty Soutar (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Kahungunu), Catherine Chidgey and Robbie Arnott’s works?

Hours ensconced in the library and archives? Hitting the road to where it all happened? Pouring over source material? And at what stage does the fact-finding end, and the imagining begin? Or are the two entwined from the off?

With their evocative and pageturning novels spanning precolonial Aotearoa New Zealand, 19th-century Tasmania, 20thcentury Europe and more, Sonya Wilson meets them to hear the practical and creative details of how they vividly bring the past to life.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by ARA.

77 FREE

All Animals Are Equal?

2.30-3.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

France’s next-gen star writer Jean-Baptiste Del Amo won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Animalia, a powerful novel about man’s desire to control nature and a tracing of five generations of pig farmers – and the violence passed down among them - on a single plot of rural soil.

Danish writer Mathilde Walter Clark won six awards for her latest book, A Blind Eye, which interrogates why the animals were left out of the story when Denmark culled its 17 million mink during the Covid-19 pandemic. The book sold 35,000 copies and changed the conversation around animals in her country.

Together with Elisabeth Easther they discuss their affecting works that capture man’s thirst to conquer nature, and the dark consequences of overpowering the animals we live amongst.

Supported by the Embassy of France and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

78 Break the Silence, Break the Cycle

2.30-3.30PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Theophila Pratt (Unveiled ) and Ali Mau (No Words for This) have lived remarkable lives, with distinct ‘befores’ and ‘afters’.

Pratt was left to fend for herself with no knowledge of the outside world when she left Gloriavale at 18, the fundamentalist Christian community at the centre of decades of allegations of sexual and physical assault.

Mau had a glittering career in the media and was a key investigative journalist bringing Aotearoa New Zealand’s #metoo stories to light, before a conversation about her own past brought her personal and professional life into a devastating clash.

With each now working to support survivors and help break the cycle of abuse, they join Samantha Hayes to discuss.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Torrey CraftingPeters: Beguiling Characters

3.00-4.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

American literary historian Stephen Greenblatt described Shakespeare’s technique in Hamlet as “strategic opacity”, reasoning that Hamlet’s actions – and those of many others in the Bard’s major plays –intentionally make little sense. The result, he posits, is the creation of a character who is all the more beguiling and “real” feeling.

Join PEN/Hemingway Awardwinning American writer Torrey Peters as she invites you to explore this concept, and think about how it may help you to create characters who don’t make sense in the very best way.

Whether it’s crafting friends who make strange and frustrating decisions, parents who act with sudden arbitrariness, or lovers who won’t accept the care they need and want, she’ll guide you through how by leaning into “strategic opacity”, you can craft characters who feel as unpredictable and lifelike as those around you, and improve your narrative as a result.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

BWB Talks Online — www.youtube.com/@BridgetWilliamsBooks

BWB Texts publisher Tom Rennie and authors Rebecca Kiddle, Rebecca Macfie, Damon Salesa and Charlotte Macdonald speaking at the 100 Texts celebration.

80 Unfinished Business?

4.00-5.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

News that Colm Tóibín was returning to the world of his New York Times bestseller Brooklyn – 15 years after its publication, and 20 years later in its characters’ lives – with Long Island was met with phenomenal excitement from readers worldwide.

Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) made similar waves among Aotearoa New Zealand readers and beyond when she announced Kataraina – the follow-up to her awardsweeping Auē – which puts Aunty Kat at its centre.

David Nicholls was recently immersed back in his huge 2009 hit novel One Day on its major Netflix adaptation, with the novel itself inspired by his own 1980s student years.

What was the pull for these writers to revisit these milestone books? And what discoveries did they make about their work, characters – or indeed, themselves – in returning?

Noelle McCarthy finds out.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by ARA and Culture Ireland.

81 Lars Mytting

4.00-5.00PM

HUNUA ROOM

With over two million books sold in 24 languages, Lars Mytting is one of Norway’s best-selling and esteemed writers.

His novel The Sixteen Trees of the Somme received the Norwegian National Booksellers' Award; his non-fiction book about firewood Norwegian Wood provided a fascinating insight into Scandinavian culture and became a global sensation; and his historical fiction trilogy, The Sister Bells – a riveting and epic family drama set in WWII-era Norway – has been an international bestseller.

On the publication of the final instalment of The Sister Bells trilogy, The Night of the Scourge, and in his first visit to the country, Simon Wilson meets this star writer from Norway and hears about his celebrated writing life.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

82 The Modern Political Novel

4.00-5.00PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Satire has long been used to expose the more absurd aspects of our realities. Anna RawhitiConnell talks to two of our keenest observers of contemporary life who have embraced the form to make sense of the current political moment.

In award-winning novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam’s eighth novel The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat his eponymous protagonist makes a mockery of representational politics and pokes fun at Wellington’s political classes.

“It’s like Succession, but with alpacas” is how Toby Manhire describes Star Gazers, the latest from novelist and screenwriter Duncan Sarkies, which thrusts readers into the seedy and suspiciously Trumpian world of alpaca breeding.

They discuss the craft behind their novels, and the realities of taking the temperature of – and keeping pace with – politics in an everquickening news cycle.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

83

Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery

4.00-5.00PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

In the 1950s, a young Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) is fostered by a family who believe in hard work and community. Although close to her kuia, she craves more: she wants higher education and refined living. But whānau dismiss her dreams. To them, she is just a show-off, always getting into trouble, talking back and running away.

In her fiery memoir about identity and belonging, Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku describes what was possible for a restless working-class girl from the pā. Ngāhuia’s story moves from her student days at Auckland University, to advocating resistance as a founding member of Ngā Tamatoa and the Women's and Gay Liberation movements, to becoming a critical voice in protests from Waitangi to the streets of Wellington.

Miriama Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga) meets her to discuss her life and Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted memoir, Hine Toa.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

84 Fiona Kidman: The Writer Within

4.00-5.00PM

HERALD THEATRE

The House Within – Joshua Prendeville’s documentary of one of our literary treasures, Fiona Kidman – sold out of all its screenings when it premiered.

Described by The Spinoff as “a treatment we’ve long needed for one of our great writers and waymakers”, it holds a delicate lens to Kidman’s illustrious life and work, a career which spans more than 30 books and a raft of the highest accolades here and abroad.

But how do you go about translating the very interior life of a writer to film? And how did an eminent writer in her ninth decade bond with a 20-something filmmaker and entrust him to tell her life story in all its highs and lows? In this special session, Kidman and Prendeville sit down with Caroline Barron (Te Uri o Hau, Pākeha) to reflect on their creative relationship.

The House Within will screen at Academy Cinemas on Tuesday 13 May, 6.30pm. Bookings via academycinemas.co.nz

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Betsy and Michael Benjamin.

Afra Atiq: The Life Benefits of Writing Poetry

5.00-6.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

In this stimulating session, awardwinning spoken word poet Afra Atiq will introduce you to the many benefits of injecting a bit of poetry into your life.

Working with some of the poems that have inspired her during challenging times, Afra will show that there are many therapeutic reasons for writing poetry.

Whether you’re a complete beginner or looking to hone your writing practice, Afra will lead you through some of the key techniques you’ll need to start building your repertoire and show you how to find daily inspiration in the unlikeliest of places.

All are welcome at this friendly session – and you’re welcome to bring along some of your own inspirational poems to share.

$65.

Supported by the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

Rumaan Alam

5.30-6.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

A late-night knock on the door in Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind sets in motion a propulsive literary thriller that dissects race, class and modern anxieties in a world shifting on its axis.

For Alam himself, the novel –described as “the book of an era” by The Independent – was also a career shifter: bringing him millions of new readers, becoming a finalist for the National Book Award and with the Obamas adapting it for Netflix starring Julia Roberts.

On the publication of his new novel, Entitlement, in which Alam’s trademark taut, unsettling and incisive style is once again in full flight in its dissection of money, power and privilege in 21st century America, he joins Brannavan Gnanalingam to discuss his extraordinary writing journey to date, and what his compelling new book says about our times.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

87 VIRTUAL Raja Shehadeh

5.30-6.30PM

HUNUA ROOM

Raja Shehadeh is one of Palestine’s most eminent writers, as well as a prominent human rights lawyer and co-founder of the pioneering human rights organisation Al-Haq.

He has been widely decorated for his writing that sheds light on the conflict in the Middle East, often through the lens of his own life. He won the Orwell Prize for Palestinian Walks and his National Book Awardshortlisted memoir We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I is a portrait of a complex father-son relationship during the 20th-century battle for Palestinian human rights.

His latest book, Forgotten – cowritten with his wife Penny Johnson – is a search for hidden or neglected memorials and places in historic Palestine, and an exploration of the complexities of commemoration in a fractured land.

He joins us on live link from Ramallah, Palestine, to speak with Susie Ferguson about his esteemed body of work.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

88

FREE Being a NZ Writer Today

5.30-6.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

It’s a bumper year for NZ literary milestones. The Michael King Writers Centre marks 20 years of hosting writer residencies; NZ’s longest-running literary journal Landfall publishes its 250th issue; and creative writing teaching at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, the home of the prestigious International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), reaches its 50th anniversary.

Collectively their alumni lists read like a ‘who’s who’ of New Zealand letters. However, among the muchdeserved milestone toasts exists a note of caution. Arts funding is more precarious than ever and a sustainable writing career feels an impossibility for many.

Madeleine Chapman meets former Writers Centre trustee Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa), Landfall editor Lynley Edmeades and IIML Director Damien Wilkins to reflect on their institutions’ contribution to NZ’s literary landscape to date, and discuss what’s required to help them survive and thrive to serve the next generation of writers.

Supported by the Michael King Writers Centre.

89 Imagined Futures

5.30-6.30PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Sayaka Murata’s Vanishing World reflects a near-future version of Japan in which sex between married couples has vanished and all children are born by artificial insemination.

Korean writer Silvia Park ’s Luminous envisages a future unified Korea where robots have integrated seamlessly into society and three estranged siblings – two humans, one robot –navigate what it means to be alive.

French Polynesian author and 2025 Randell Cottage Writer in Residence Titaua Peu’s work in progress explores a world marked by a reverse migration, in which inhabitants of Aotearoa have migrated north to the island of Mangareva following a great war.

Bright literary minds, thrilling premises, big themes. These three bold global voices join Paula Morris to discuss what inspired their works, and what they say about their respective countries and cultures.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

90 A Waiata in an Hour

He Waiata i te Hāora Kotahi

5.45-6.45PM

HERALD THEATRE

Be part of something special as musician Anika Moa (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri) opens her creative process and invites the audience to be part of conceiving, writing and performing an entirely original waiata in just 60 minutes.

The audience gives Anika the genre and a key lyric. The timer starts, and Anika goes to work.

Bring your taonga puoro, bring your voices to be part of a doo-wop chorus, bring your hands to give Anika a hand-clap backing beat or simply sit back and watch the magic unfold.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity for a performing taonga to open the curtains to the writing process in a way that few people will ever get the chance to see.

Whai wāhi mai ki tētahi kaupapa motuhake, i te ringa puoro, i a Anika Moa (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri) ka whakawātea ake i tana tukanga auaha, ka rāhiri ai i te whakaminenga kia whai wāhi atu ki te whanaketanga o tētahi waiata taketake katoa, mai anō i te whakaaro, ki te tuhi, ki te

waiatatanga anō hoki, ka mutu, ka tutuki te katoa i te 60 meneti noa iho.

Mā te whakaminenga te momo waiata me t/ētahi kupu matua e tuku ki a Anika. Ka tīmata te inewā, ka kotahi atu a Anika ki tāna mahi.

Haria mai ō taonga puoro, tukuna tō reo hei wāhi nō tētahi tira waiata doo-wop, ko ō ringa hei āwhina i a Anika mā te paki i te taki, māna, kia tā noa tō manawa, ka mātaki ai koe i ngā mahi whakamīharo ka rere.

Kei mahue koe i tēnei ara whai hua motuhake e huraina ai e tētahi o ō tātou tino taonga whakangahau tētahi tukanga tito – he āhuatanga me uaua ka rangona e te nuinga.

Part of the He Ahi Kei Taku Korokoro curation by Michael and Matariki Bennett.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

The 2024 Booker Prize Winner: Samantha Harvey

7.00-8.15PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

At just 136 pages long, British novelist Samantha Harvey’s slim book about a single day in the life of six astronauts and cosmonauts orbiting the earth beat a year’s worth of literary fiction to be crowned the winner of The 2024 Booker Prize.

Written during Covid lockdowns, the characters of Orbital exist together in the tight living quarters of the International Space Station, but their, and the novel’s, viewpoint is vast.

Together they witness 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets, spin through continents and seasons, and observe news from ‘home’ (earth) – whether that’s natural disasters or severe personal loss – while viewing the planet from a huge distance.

It’s a novel that joins an acclaimed body of work, including the novels The Wilderness, The Western Wind and the non-fiction work The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping that have seen Harvey shortlisted for The James Tait Black Award, The Women's Prize, The Guardian First Book Award and The Walter Scott Prize.

Don’t miss Kate De Goldi in discussion with this world-class writer working at the height of her powers.

Earlybird $45.50; Standard $49.50; Patrons $39.50; Students $21.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Jenny & Andrew Smith and the Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Marsden Fund.

92 Inside The Iranian Embassy Siege

7.00-8.00PM HUNUA ROOM

On 30 April 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy in London and took 26 people hostage, setting in motion a tense six-day siege closely followed by the world’s media.

Millions around the globe watched as police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff and the SAS –hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod.

“The pre-eminent historian of the secret world” Ben Macintyre’s bestselling The Siege thrillingly recounts the events of this daring mission and includes the first-ever authorised accounts from the soldiers involved, including that of Fijian Staff Sergeant Tom Morell , whose bravery and skill saved many lives.

In this very special session, Macintyre meets Morell – now in his 80s and living in Aotearoa New Zealand – in person for the first time and together they unveil one of the most notable chapters in the history of the SAS. Chaired by Anna Fifield

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Michael King Writers Centre.

93 Antti Tuomainen

7.00-8.00PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Described by critics as the “King of Helsinki Noir”, Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter before making his debut as a suspense author in 2007. Combining a piercing and evocative thriller style with his trademark dark, offbeat humour (The Times called him “the funniest writer in Europe”), his books challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula and have won him both legions of readers, and the attention of the screen world.

Now published in 28 languages, his most recent book, The Burning Stones was listed as Book of the Year in The Sunday Times and The Guardian, and TV and film adaptations of his other work abound.

Little Siberia premiered in a major Netflix adaptation in early 2025; The Rabbit Factor is in production for Amazon Studios starring Steve Carell, and an adaptation of The Man Who Died is currently streaming internationally, with a second series on the way.

Adam Dudding meets this unique and in-demand writer in his first appearance at the Festival.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

94 Asako Yuzuki: Butter

7.30-8.30PM

HERALD THEATRE

“A full-fat, Michelin-starred treat” is how The Sunday Times described the smash hit Japanese novel Butter by Asako Yuzuki , translated by Polly Barton.

Inspired by the true story of a female serial killer who was accused of seducing her victims with her home cooking, it has won equal praise for its tense mystery narrative and its mouthwatering descriptions of food.

In this unique session, chef and winner of MasterChef New Zealand Sam Low and former food editor at Metro Jean Teng, co-hosts of the Ate Ate Ate podcast, speak with Yuzuki about the food of Butter and its depiction of Japanese women enjoying food as a transgressive act, all while cooking some dishes inspired by the book live on stage.

It will be a killer, full-fat treat of its own. And you may be one of the lucky audience members who get to taste-test…

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Ian Rankin

8.45-9.45PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Multi-million copies sold worldwide, more than 30 books published and an OBE for services to Literature to his name, not to mention a Diamond Dagger award, which recognises outstanding lifetime achievement in crime fiction.

Ian Rankin is unparalleled in his field.

His latest Rebus thriller, Midnight and Blue turns the tables and sees the Edinburgh detective himself behind bars. But how do you catch a killer in a place full of them? It’s been described by reviewers as “taught, claustrophobic, thrilling” and “Rankin at his best”.

He joins Jim Mora to discuss his highly praised and instant No. 1 bestselling new book and reflect on a phenomenal career at the forefront of crime writing.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Pip Muir and Kit Toogood.

96

Dark Tales Salon

9.00-10.00PM

HERALD THEATRE

As the autumn nights draw in, join some of our renowned dark storytellers for a salon of unsettling tales.

Guest readers include: Queen of Latin American horror Mariana Enriquez ( A Sunny Place for Shady People); Ockham NZ Book Award shortlisted Kirsty Gunn (Pretty Ugly); Ockham NZ Book Award winner Noelle McCarthy (reading from a Dracula-inspired work-in-progress piece) and star next generation French writer and Republic of Consciousness Prize winner Jean-Baptiste Del Amo (The Son of Man, Animalia).

Hosted by MC Chris Tse.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Embassy of France and Scottish Books International.

Proud sponsors of the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki

Japan’s Trailblazers

Saili Matagi — The Winds of Change

Andy Griffiths

Catherine Chidgey

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

97 FREE A New Light

6.45AM & 5.10PM STARTING AOTEA SQUARE AND CLOCKWISE LOOP THROUGH CBD

From opening word to closing lines; daybreak to nightfall; first event to last, the events at AWF bookend a world of stories each day.

But we know Festival-goers’ journeys don’t start and end at the Aotea Centre’s doors.

From filing through the city on early Festival mornings with the fizz of anticipation for what’s ahead; to the satisfied journey home at the end of each day, filled with new ideas, stories and connections, the Festival sets in motion a beautiful reverberation of words and fresh perspectives throughout the city.

To celebrate the city of stories that Tāmaki becomes during AWF, award-winning designer Marcus McShane will weave his bike-bound projector through the city’s streets and alleyways, casting on to its architecture Festival writers’ words that capture the beauty of daybreak and nightfall, each Festival day.

*This is a cycle-led projection route around the inner city that can be followed at walking pace. The full route will last about 1 hour, and attendees are welcome to join for its entirety, or drop in/ out. Projection locations will be announced closer to the Festival

98-102 FREE Kōrero Corner

100 12.30-1.00pm No Stupid Questions: Marcel Dirsus

Baffled by big topics? Too embarrassed to ask what, why, when and how? No Stupid Questions is back, and political scientist Marcel Dirsus is here to answer pātai from the world of global politics that may be stumping you!

Supported by The Goethe-Institut.

101

2.30-3.00pm

Worldwide Book Club: Korea

Join Silvia Park for a rapid-fire session of book recommendations from South Korea and diaspora, leaning toward horror and the speculative.

Supported by Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

102

3.30-4.00pm

Local Lists: Bateman, and Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand

9.15-9.45am

Atua Wāhine Flow

Start the morning with Atua Wāhine author Hana Tapiata (Tūhourangi, Ngāti Tarāwhai, Ngāti Hinemihi) as she leads you through a gentle morning vinyasa and meditation while sharing some of her inspiration and whakaaro behind the book. All abilities welcome.

99

11.00-11.30am

Debut of the Day: Ferdia Lennon

The award-winning debut Glorious Exploits really comes alive when read aloud. Join Ferdia Lennon for a reading which gives Medea a contemporary Irish twist.

Supported by Culture Ireland.

Aotearoa New Zealand-based publishers share upcoming titles to look out for in the year ahead. Join these daily sessions to be first in the know!

Duncan Sarkies: Writers as Explorers

9.00-10.30AM WAIHOROTIU ROOM

Developing a project can feel like being lost in the middle of the ocean. Not knowing where or how to start can sink projects before they begin.

But beyond this uncertainty lies the joy of discovery, as you learn to build a map from your own mind and heart, and prepare to take your audiences on a journey.

Award-winning writer Duncan Sarkies has navigated this process countless times, both individually and as a collaborator. He has also helped others through the stormy seas of this initial phase.

Whether you come with a project in mind or seek a whole new direction, Duncan will help you demystify the process, offering tools for navigating the unknown, embracing uncertainty and discovering exciting, untapped stories.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education. 104

FAMILY EVENT

The Tiny Show

9.30-10.15AM HERALD THEATRE

Welcome to The Tiny Show! Meet a quiet clown and her troupe of toys as she recounts fables and tales. This clown can sing, dance and eat pink wafers like no one else.

Encounter a jealous witch, a lonely wolf and a very sorry piggy. Be dazzled with sassy looks and spinetingling harmonies. Grab a teddy and lean in close for a tiny, intimate theatre show for the whole family to enjoy.

Suitable for Deaf and hearing audiences aged 3 years and up.

Performed by Tomasin FisherJohnson .

All tickets $16.

105 FREE The Book Factory

10.00AM-5.00PM AOTEA SQUARE

Publishing is an engine that drives the spread of ideas and turns thoughts into tangible works that can shape the future. The Book Factory - a high-energy, temporary publishing house where you make the book from start to finish –created by Marcus McShane and 5ever books, takes that energy and transforms it into something raw, real, and uniquely yours.

Every half hour, human energy, bicycle power and printed matter are transformed into the latest proof. Be part of our creative powerhouse in Aotea Square over the course of AWF and have a go at writing, editing, drawing, printing or pedalling your way to producing one-of-a-kind books, all completely people powered!

All Festival-goers, whatever their age, publishing or pedalling(!) experience are welcome to join in; and you can be part of the ‘Factory’ for however long you fancy.

106

David Nicholls

10.00-11.00AM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

UK critics hailed 2024 as “the year of David Nicholls”. And boy, was it.

A “note perfect” (BBC) Netflix adaptation introduced his smashhit novel One Day to a whole new generation of readers. His new novel You Are Here became the biggest-selling hardback release of his career. And prizes and praise rolled in: winning the Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Fiction 2024 and having the New York Times refer to it as “captivating” and The Sunday Times “a triumph”.

A will-they-or-won’t-they love story between two unlikely mid-lifers hiking the Northumberland coast path, it’s a novel of first encounters, second chances and finding the way home.

In his first AWF appearance, he joins Michele A’Court

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Pip Greenwood & David Gibson.

107 FREE Tangata Tiriti for Te Tiriti

10.00-11.00AM

HUNUA ROOM

In November 2024 Aotearoa New Zealand saw one of the largest hīkoi to Parliament in its history, as tens of thousands marched across the country to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill.

It’s a bill that has reopened a conversation about what Te Tiriti o Waitangi means for all New Zealanders and what it means to honour Te Tiriti as Tangata Tiriti and as Māori.

Max Harris (Pākehā), lawyer and ActionStation campaigner; sociologist Avril Bell (Pākehā), editor of Becoming Tangata Tiriti: Working with Māori, Honouring the Treaty ; and Kirsty Fong (Chinese whakapapa), co-founder of Asians for Tino Rangatiratanga, join Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Maniapoto) for this essential and timely conversation.

108

Dick Frizzell

10.00-11.00AM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Dick Frizzell is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s best known and most versatile painters.

But every life begins somewhere and in Hastings: A Boy’s Own Adventure, he vividly captures his early years in his hometown in the 1950s and early 1960s before he headed south to art school.

Guns, old cars, digging tunnels, riding motorbikes and wandering around unsupervised, it was a boy’s own adventure that is a far cry from many town childhoods today.

He joins Steve Braunias to discuss his charming, big-hearted and funny memoir that is a love letter to Hastings; an insight into the man and artist he would become, and a snapshot of small town New Zealand life in a bygone era.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

109 Norse Mythology & Folklore

10.00-11.00AM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

You may have knowledge of Māori mythology, possibly Greek and Roman too. But how familiar are you with Nordic myths and legends? Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa) meets our thoughtful panel to hear insights to the region’s origin stories and belief systems.

Lars Mytting’s best-selling The Sister Bells trilogy is steeped in the time-honoured folklore of Norway and explores a remote community navigating the coalescence of Norse mythology with Christianity’s recent arrival.

Winner of Sweden’s most distinguished literary prize, Elin Anna Labba is a Sámi writer and journalist from the Sápmi region – a culture rich in traditions and oral storytelling – and her role at the Sámi Authors’ Centre is to strengthen the visibility of its literature and stories.

Finnish–New Zealand poet Mikaela Nyman draws on Finnish Kalevala mythology in her expansive new collection The Anatomy of Sand

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13. Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

110 MASTERCLASS

Silvia Park: Speculative Worlds

11.00AM-12.30PM

WAIHOROTIU

ROOM

Silvia Park teaches fiction writing at the University of Kansas and is the author of Luminous, a speculative novel set in a nearfuture reunified Korea where robots have integrated seamlessly into society.

In this workshop you will explore how the power of the speculative genre lies in the way it can render the familiar unfamiliar and the unfamiliar familiar.

Utilising readings from the likes of Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang and Lesley Nneka Arimah and writing exercises, it will examine patterns over rules, and how perspective, history, analogy and texture infuse a world with not just vitality but room to breathe.

$65.

Supported by Literature Translation Institute of Korea and the University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

111

FAMILY EVENT

Andy Griffiths: From Treehouse to Unlimited Adventure

11.30AM-12.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Dive into the imagination of one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors, whose humour has helped legions of kids fall in love with reading.

Andy Griffiths will take you through some of his favourite moments from his much-loved Treehouse series — which began with 13 storeys and grew to an incredible 169 — packed with outrageous features like man-eating sharks, a 78-flavour ice cream parlour, and the world’s most powerful whirlpool.

Always brimming with new ideas, Andy will also introduce his new series, YOU & ME and The Land of Lost Things, one of his most thrilling — and mind-bending — adventures yet!

Join us to celebrate the magic and madness of a children’s literature legend.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Child/Students $13

Supported by the Australian High Commission.

112 VIRTUAL Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Dream Count

11.30AM-12.30PM

HUNUA ROOM

The announcement that major Nigerian novelist and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was releasing her first novel in more than a decade set the book world abuzz, with international, national and local outlets naming it as a literary event of the year.

From the award-winning author of multiple works of fiction and nonfiction, including Americanah, We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow Sun , the new novel Dream Count is set across America and Nigeria and explores four women linked by friendship reckoning with their shared loves, regrets and desires.

Don’t miss this long-awaited conversation as she joins Dione Joseph on a live link from New York, to discuss the book and her illustrious career to date.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13. Supported by SHIFT.

113 Atua Wāhine: The Ancient Wisdom of Māori Goddesses

11.30AM-12.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

From the earth mother, Papatūānuku, who sustains and nurtures us; to the goddess of peace, Hinepūtehue, who transformed pain into beauty; and the misunderstood goddess of the underworld, Hinenuitepō, who created purpose and enlightenment from betrayal.

These are the atua wāhine, the Māori goddesses who make up the world around us: earth, fire, water, the moon and more.

Hana Tapiata (Tūhourangi, Ngāti Tarāwhai, Ngāti Hinemihi) joins Kanoa Lloyd (Ngāti Porou) to share the rich stories of these atua wāhine, and discuss how their ancient wisdom can help us all to navigate the modern world.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

114

NZ’s Pandemic Story: First and Next Chapters

11.30AM-12.30PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

In March 2020 the country closed its borders and adopted a nationwide lockdown in an effort to eliminate COVID-19. What followed were some of the most extraordinary months and years in public health in our lifetime.

Five years on, and with Aotearoa New Zealand set to become a global case study in pandemic management, Simon Wilson meets three key figures to help understand the country’s pandemic story so far, and discuss what might await us.

Physicist Professor Shaun Hendy (The Covid Response) takes us behind the scenes of the advisory team at Te Pūnaha Matatini (NZ’s Centre for Research Excellence) and unpacks the science that guided critical decisions.

Dr Kimiora Raerino’s (Ngāti Awa, Te Arawa) Toitū Ngā Marae recounts interviews with ten Tāmaki Makaurau marae leaders to hear about their key role in the local health response, and their proactive and community minded approach.

Dr Raerino will be joined by chair of Ruapotaka Marae, Lavinia McGeeRepia

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

He toi whakairo he mana tangata.

and

Beautiful books

big conversations at the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki.

Silo’s Principal Partner

115 FREE

Back to Square One?

11.30AM-12.30PM

AOTEA SQUARE

Ninety-five-year-old Inga lives in Denmark, reaching out through space and time to her grandson in Aotearoa New Zealand. Inga has witnessed world wars, cold wars, and civil wars, both in real life and on TV.

And when you're nearly 100, you’ve certainly learned a thing or two.

Using nothing but chalk, Anders Falstie-Jensen weaves the Norse myth of Ragnarok into a deeply personal story about disasters, family, and unexpected connections.

Brannavan Gnanalingam: How to Write Your Book

1.00-2.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

Have an idea for a book but not sure how to start? Or made a start but a creative block or just the busyness of life getting in your way?

Luckily, we have Brannavan Gnanalingam (The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat) – author of eight published books, as well as being a full-time practicing lawyer and family man – on hand to help.

In this workshop you’ll hear about ways to get your book written around life’s other commitments, and how to uncover your own process as you move from first draft to the final iteration.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

117 Japan’s Trailblazers: Sayaka Murata & Asako Yuzuki

1.00-2.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

One of the most celebrated of Japan’s new generation of writers, Sayaka Murata has won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, as well as the Noma, the Mishima Yukio Prizes and Gunzo New Writers Award.

Her smash-hit Convenience Store Woman – about a quirky misfit living outside society’s lines – made her a global sensation. Earthlings, Life Ceremony, and her latest novel Vanishing World explore increasingly extreme subversions of social expectations and norms, particularly around the role of women and their bodies.

Asako Yuzuki’s Butter was a cult bestseller in Japan and has stormed international charts. Following a female serial killer accused of seducing her victims with food, it’s a gripping exploration of misogyny, obsession and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan. They discuss their brilliantly rebellious works – and what they capture about women’s experiences in Japan and beyond – with Paula Morris

118 Writing Humour

1.00-2.00PM

HUNUA ROOM

Carl Shuker ’s Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted The Royal Free is an exuberant, dark, wildly entertaining novel about death and copy editing.

Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits imagines an unlikely Irish pair staging Antigone’s Medea in a quarry, and won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, the UK’s biggest humour writing prize.

Fellow Wodehouse Prize shortlistee Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time’s situationship between a Victorian polar explorer navigating 21st-century London and a modernday civil servant was described by critics as “a delightfully audacious screwball comedy”.

Michele A'Court joins them to hear about what inspired their humorous novels in unlikely settings, what goes into crafting humour that connects with readers, and what it allows them to do as writers.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by ARA and Culture Ireland

Hanne Ørstavik

1.00-2.00PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

Hanne Ørstavik , who was born in Norway’s far north and has since called Oslo and Milan home, is one of its most distinguished and decorated writers. She was recently awarded the Gyldendal Prize, Norway’s biggest literary prize – awarded to authors with an exceptional body of work.

Her dark, beautiful and devastating novella Love won the 2019 PEN Translation Prize and was a finalist for The National Book Award for Translated Literature. Closely followed in English translation was Ti Amo, a novella informed by Ørstavik’s loss of her Italian husband to cancer soon into their marriage.

Her most recent publication to appear in English translation is Stay with Me, a novel in which she returns to her theme of love –this time exploring how it can be intertwined with insecurity, fear and violence.

Noelle McCarthy meets this extraordinary writer in a comprehensive conversation about her work.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers .

120 Writing Auckland

1.00-2.00PM WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Jeremy Hansen meets three writers exploring the complexities of Tāmaki Makaurau, and evoking life in the city across eras and forms.

In Dominic Hoey ’s 1985, 12-yearold Obi comes of age in the multicultural Grey Lynn of the 1980s; the stories in Alex Scott ’s long-form comic Episodes move through the 90s and 2000s with nostalgic Auckland references peppered throughout, and Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Maniapoto) interrogates the experience of living in a gentrified and often hostile Tāmaki Makaurau through her wāhine Māori protagonist Māreikura.

Together they discuss the points of connections and departures of their fictionalised Aucklands and examine the craft of writing about place.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

121 Philippe Sands

2.30-3.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

Philippe Sands is a worldrenowned lawyer, a frequent CNN and BBC commentator and winner of the UK’s biggest non-fiction prize for East West Street

In his first AWF appearance he discusses his new book that has been almost a decade in the making, 38 Londres Street, with Linda Clark

A unique blend of memoir, courtroom drama and travelogue, it traces the footsteps of two of the 20th century’s most merciless criminals – Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and SS Commander Walther Rauff – each of whom tested the limits of immunity and impunity after Nuremberg.

Hailed as “an indelible and enthralling work of moral witness" by Patrick Radden Keefe; by Ian Rankin as having “the pace of a thriller” and “a true masterpiece” by Henry Marsh, this is a book, and conversation, not to miss.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Joséphine & Ross Green, the Legal Research Foundation and the University of Auckland’s Law School.

122 A Voice for the Lost: Jacqueline Bublitz and Chris Whitaker

2.30-3.30PM HUNUA ROOM

Jacqueline Bublitz’s internationally best-selling debut novel Before You Knew My Name arrived with the bold tagline: “[t]his is not just another novel about a dead girl”. Praised for its subversion of women in crime fiction being silenced victims, its follow-up Leave the Girls Behind takes a similarly sophisticated approach to centering female victims, not their perpetrators.

Chris Whitaker ’s phenomenally successful All the Colours of the Dark has won similar praise for putting the action and heart on what its cast of missing girls leave behind. It has won praise from the likes of Gillian Flynn, Richard Osman and Bonnie Garmus and the I News critic called it “the best thriller I've ever read”.

They join Fiona Sussman to discuss the compassion, intellect and plotting that went into creating their masterful thrillers that readers adore.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

123 Languages of the Land

2.30-3.30PM

LIMELIGHT ROOM

The remote Shetland archipelago in Scotland, the Sápmi region at the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Aotearoa New Zealand are the homes of our three panelists. Three far-flung lands with similar histories of colonisation and suppression of their indigenous languages.

Moana Maniapoto (Te Arawa; Ngati Tūwharetoa) talks to Roseanne Watt , a writer, filmmaker and musician writing in the languages of Shaetlan, Scots and English; Sámi journalist and writer Elin Anna Labba whose work at the Sámi Authors’ Centre aims to strengthen and emphasise Sámi literature and Chris Selwyn (Te Rarawa, Te Uri o Hina, Te Patutoka), tumuaki (principal) of te reo Māori immersion kura Ngā Puna O Waiōrea, where he demonstrates a lifetime commitment to the aspirations of cultural and language revitalisation through education.

Together they examine the efforts around language reclamation in their respective homelands and discuss their own personal journeys.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers and a British Council Connections through Culture grant.

Torrey Peters

2.30-3.30PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Torrey Peters’ whip smart debut novel Detransition , Baby was described by The Guardian as “the first great trans realist novel” and earned praise from fellow authors including Curtis Sittenfeld, Chris Kraus and Roxane Gay.

A social comedy about three women – transgender and cisgender – whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy, it won the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award for debut fiction, was longlisted for The Women’s Prize for Fiction and was named a Best Book of the Century by the New York Times

In her first appearance at AWF, Peters joins Victor Rodger to discuss her lauded beginnings as a writer and introduce her second book, Stag Dance, which is acidly funny and breathtaking in scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

125 FREE Saili Matagi — The Winds of Change: A Poetry Showcase

2.30-3.30PM

HERALD THEATRE

Building from AWF 24’s “Our Culture, Our Climate – Voices from Across the Pacific” project supported by the British Council Connections Through Culture grant, “Saili Matagi – The Winds of Change”, is the unsuspecting sequel, promising a night of Pasifika poetry that highlights the resilience and adaptability of Pacific people in light of the ongoing climate crisis.

With another year under their belt, join poets Jonjon Tolovae, Simaima Palei , Kapitania Funaki , Mercy Laufale, Rachel Senikaucava , Luani Nansen and Kasi Valu for a dynamic night of moana-rich poetry and spoken word.

Part of Zech Soakai’s guest curatorship.

126 MASTERCLASS

Naomi Arnold: Writing the World

3.00-4.30PM

WAIHOROTIU ROOM

Journalist and author Naomi Arnold’s first-ever published magazine story was a Listener travel piece on Thailand and she has made writing about people and place her career ever since.

Join the award-winning freelance travel, science and nature writer for a masterclass in crafting compelling travel narratives.

Learn tips on research and capturing and conveying place, character and experience to bring your adventures to life, whether for publication, family or personal reflection.

There will also be a discussion about the freelance publishing landscape today – bring along your burning questions.

$65.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts and Education.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts.

Craig White

127 Catherine Chidgey: The Book of Guilt

4.00-5.00PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

She delights readers with her skilled and thrilling novels; induces envy in fellow writers with her prolific and wide-ranging output; and recently caused an international bidding war among publishers for her major new novel, The Book of Guilt

Kate De Goldi meets the two-time Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction winner Catherine Chidgey in an exclusive first event for The Book of Guilt.

A work of dystopian fiction set in a sinister version of 1970s England, the winning international publisher deemed it “one of the most memorable and haunting reading experiences” of his reading life.

A conversation – and book – not to be missed.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by ARA

128 Steve Williams: Together We Roared

4.00-5.O0PM

HUNUA ROOM

When Tiger Woods went on an unprecedented majors run between 1999 and 2008, one man stood at his side: his caddie Steve Williams.

Together they dominated the PGA Tour and won an astonishing 13 major championships, their sights set on breaking Jack Nicklaus’s record 18 majors.

Before they could do so, however, their partnership ended abruptly, and a 12-year period without talking began. Years later, the two reconnected.

Sam Ackerman sits down with the world-class caddie to hear about his book Together We Roared, which explores what it’s like to ride alongside greatness and offers an insider’s look at a friendship –both on and off the course – that produced one of the most successful duos in golf history.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

129 Ferdia Lennon: Glorious Exploits

4.00-5.00PM

WAITĀ KERE ROOM

Described as “one of the most original and brilliant debuts in years” by The Irish Times, Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits has had quite the journey.

It won the prestigious Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize; beat David Nicholls and Dolly Alderton to win The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction (for which a pig gets named after the winning novel, but we’ll let Ferdia tell you about that) and has been picked as a Book of the Year by countless media outlets.

Set in 412 BC Sicily and told in contemporary Irish brogue, it follows two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink who attempt to stage Medea in a quarry using a cast of Athenian prisoners.

Intrigued? You should be. Don’t miss Maggie Tweedie meeting him.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Culture Ireland .

130

Alan Hollinghurst

5.30-6.30PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

It’s 20 years since Alan Hollinghurst last appeared at Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki as a freshly minted Booker Prize winner for The Line of Beauty

The Stranger’s Child and The Sparsholt Affair followed to huge acclaim and his latest novel, Our Evenings, has had a rapturous reception from readers and critics alike.

Both a novel of ideas, and one man’s personal odyssey through a changing Britain from the 1960s to present day, it prompted The Times to describe him as “an English stylist without obvious living equal”, The Financial Times “almost Austenian in his eye for social comedy” and The Sunday Times to declare it “the best novel that’s been written about contemporary Britain in the past 10 years”.

Don’t miss his long-awaited Festival return as he joins Victor Rodger in conversation.

Earlybird $24; Standard $29.50; Patrons $19.50; Students $13.

Supported by Platinum Patron Kevin Ramsbottom-Isherwood

131 FREE Someone Saved My Life Tonight

Nā Tētahi Ahau i Whakaora i Tēnei Pō

5.30-6.30PM

HERALD THEATRE

A celebration of storytelling live on stage, featuring writers and thinkers from Aotearoa New Zealand and across the world. Seven performers each have seven minutes to present a story about someone who saved their lives – literally or figuratively. Intimate, confronting, nail-biting, joyful and poignant, take a seat as our storytellers share their tales of life, near-death and survival and the lessons learned.

Guest performers: Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Maniapoto); Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā);

Afra Atiq, Matariki Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue); Miriama McDowell (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi); Dominic Hoey; Silvia Park

He kaupapa mataora ki te atamira e whakanui ana i te tuku pūrākau. Ka kitea ko ētahi ringatuhi me ētahi hinengaro kakama nō Aotearoa me wāhi kē atu huri i te ao. E whitu meneti ka tukuna ki ia o ētahi kaiwhakaari tokowhitu hei whakapuaki i tētahi kōrero mō tētahi tangata i whakaora i a rātou - ā-tikanga hāngai rānei, ā-tikanga peha rānei.

Hei mema nō te whakaminenga, ka whai wheako koe, ka rangona te wairua whakahorohoro, ka noho poho tārewa, ka rangona hoki ko te hari nui me te whakaaroha. Hono mai nō ā tātou kaituku pūrākau ka hora i ā rātou anō kōrero mō te oranga, mō te taunga ki te pari o te rua, mō te puta anō ki te ora, ā, mō ngā akoranga i mau.

Ngā kaiwhakaari ka whakamanuhiritia: Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Maniapoto); Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā); Afra Atiq, Matariki Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue); Miriama McDowell (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi); Dominic Hoey; Silvia Park

Part of the He Ahi Kei Taku Korokoro curation by Michael and Matariki Bennett.

Supported by the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

Colm Tóibín

7.00-8.15PM

KIRI TE KANAWA THEATRE

A short blurb can’t do justice to Colm Tóibín . He’s the author of ten lauded novels including The Master, Brooklyn , The Testament of Mary, Nora Webster and The Magician; collections of short fiction; several books of criticism and recently completed a tenure as the Laureate for Irish Fiction. His latest novel, Long Island – a return to the world and characters of his beloved and best-selling Brooklyn – was hailed as a “masterpiece” by critics and proved so popular in his native Ireland that it was named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year and 1 in every 150 people in the country bought a copy.

His popularity, renown and adoration stretches well beyond the Emerald Isle, of course. In this special visit to Aotearoa New Zealand, Paula Morris meets him to discuss an extraordinary life in letters.

Earlybird $45.50; Standard $49.50; Patrons $39.50; Students $21.

Supported by ARA and Culture Ireland.

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INDEX

5ever books 31, 58, 78

Ackerman, Sam 88

A’Court, Michele 79, 85 Adam, Pip 42, 63

Alam, Rumaan 35, 62, 70

Alefosio, Marina 32

Arnold, Naomi 30, 87

Arnott, Robbie 61, 64

Atamira Dance Company 50

Atiq, Afra 34, 69, 89

Auckland Museum Wikimedians 23

Auckland Zinefest 50 Baker, Matiu 19

Barron, Caroline 69

Belgrave, Michael 25

Bell, Avril 79

Bennett, Joe 30

Bennett, Matariki 4, 89

Bennett, Michael 4, 24

Bishop, Gavin 5, 33, 42, 50, 53 Borell, Nigel 31

Bradley, Kaliane 44, 64, 85

Braunias, Steve 79

Brown, Deidre 19, 31

Bublitz, Jacqueline 86

Calman, Ross 25

Carlyle, Rose 33

Celdrán, Alba Gil 42, 53

Chapman, Madeleine 70

Charters, Claire 41

Chidgey, Catherine 64, 88 Clark, Linda 86

Connell, John 25, 40

Conroy, Thom 40

Cooper, Katie 19

Cotter, Sacha 52

Cruickshank, Una 19

Dalton, Trent 18

De Goldi, Kate 72, 88 de Silva, Saraid 64

Del Amo, Jean-Baptiste 61, 65, 75

Dirsus, Marcel 59, 62, 77

Dobson, Jude 35

Donovan, Emile 35

Donson, Greg 19

Dudding, Adam 32, 73 Easther, Elisabeth 24, 65 Edmeades, Lynley 24, 70 Ellis, Ngarino 19, 31

Enriquez, Mariana 43, 63, 75

Falstie-Jensen, Anders 84

Fearnley, Laurence 19

Feltham, Flora 19, 57, 63 Ferguson, Susie 70

Fifield, Anna 43, 60, 72

Fisher-Johnson, Tomasin 54, 64, 78 Fitzgerald, Michael 19

Fong, Kirsty 79

Forrester, Kura 42, 53

Frizzell, Dick 79

Funaki, Kapitania 87

Gnanalingam, Brannavan 68, 70, 84

Godwin, Georgina 42, 60

Godwin, Peter 42, 60

Grant, Stan 20, 33

Grayling, A. C. 35, 62

Griffiths, Andy 54, 80

Gunn, Kirsty 19, 43, 58, 75

Gustavsson, Per 30, 42, 51, 53

Hansen, Jeremy 85

Harris, Aroha 41

Harris, Max 41, 79

Harvey, Samantha 42, 72

Hayes, Samantha 65

Haylock, Heather 53

Hendy, Shaun 81

Hereaka, Whiti 62, 70, 80

Hoey, Dominic 32, 85, 89

Hollinghurst, Alan 60, 89

Hura, Nadine Anne 61

Hurtig, Leslie 23

Joseph, Dione 81

Kaa, Hirini 62

Kamo, Miriama 19, 33, 40, 69

Kidman, Fiona 69

Kim, Graci 51

Kino, Shilo 32, 79, 85, 89

Labba, Elin Anna 30, 32, 57, 80, 86

Langstone, Michelle 18

Laufale, Mercy 87

Lavea-Timo, Daisy 43

Lei’ataua, Susana 34

Lennon, Ferdia 77, 85, 88

Lloyd, Kanoa 81

Low, Sam 73

Mabey, Claire 34, 51, 54, 61

Macdonald, Finlay 30, 41

Macintyre, Ben 19, 41, 72

Makereti, Tina 19, 31, 59, 63, 89

Manawatu, Becky 41, 59, 68

Mane-Wheoki, Jonathan 19

Manhire, Toby 59, 62

Maniapoto, Moana 33, 86

Mason, Meg 20

Matata-Sipu, Qiane 52

Matuku, Steph 42, 53

Mau, Ali 65

McCarthy, Noelle 68, 75, 85

McCredie, Athol 19

McDowell, Miriama 20, 89

McGee-Repia, Lavinia 81

McShane, Marcus 20, 23, 31, 57, 58, 77, 78

McTiernan, Dervla 24, 33

Moa, Anika 50, 71

Mora, Jim 73

Morell, Tom 72

Morgan, Josh 52

Morris, Paula 71, 84, 90

Morris, Toby 42, 51, 53

Murata, Sayaka 71, 84

Murray, Lee 43

Mytting, Lars 30, 40, 68, 80

Nansen, Luani 87

Neale, Emma 19

Ngarewa, Airana 34

Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda 81

Nicholls, David 20, 68, 79

Nicol Reed, Megan 33

Nyman, Mikaela 80

Ørstavik, Hanne 30, 34, 44, 85

Palei, Simaima 87

Paris, Rachel 33

Park, Silvia 71, 77, 80, 89

Peters, Torrey 44, 60, 65, 87

Peu, Titaua 71

Pratt, Theophila 65

Prendeville, Joshua 69

Raerino, Kimiora 81

Rahurahu, Michelle 23, 32

Rankin, Ian 24, 73

Rawhiti-Connell, Anna 68

Rew, Nathan 32

Rice, Rebecca 19

Rodger, Victor 87, 89

Ruru, Jacinta 40

Sands, Philippe 41, 60, 86

Sarkies, Duncan 68, 78

Scott, Alex 85

Selwyn, Chris 86

Senikaucava, Rachel 87

Shaw, Richard 19

Shaw, Ruth 24

Shehadeh, Raja 70

Shuker, Carl 85

Sissay, Lemn 20, 58

Sisson, Liv 30

Soakai, Eric 43

Soakai, Zech 4, 20, 32, 43

Soutar, Monty 32, 64

Sparring, Anders 30, 42, 51, 53

Spoor Books 57

Stanley, Talia 43

Stead, C.K. 19

Sullivan, Robert 19

Sussman, Fiona 86

Talbot, Kate 51, 52, 53

Tapiata, Hana 57, 77, 81

Taylor, Jennifer 19

Te Ahunui Farnham, Donovan 25

Te Awekōtuku, Ngāhuia 19, 20, 60, 69

Te Kani, Samuel 44

Teng, Jean 73

Tennet, Olivia 52

The ReCreators 52

Tikao, Ariana 62

Timoteo, MahMah 32

Todd, Jenna 59, 63

Tóibín, Colm 20, 68, 90

Tolovae, Jonjon 87

Townsend, Jessica 54, 61

Trevelyan, Jill 19

Tricklebank, Jordan 23

Tse, Chris 60, 75

Tuomainen, Antti 30, 32, 73

Tweedie, Maggie 88

Valu, Kasi 87

van der Wouden, Yael 34, 44, 59

von Sturmer, Richard 19

Walter Clark, Mathilde 30, 42, 65

Walter, Harriet 20, 44

Wanhalla, Angela 40

Ward-Lealand, Jennifer 44

Watt, Roseanne 61, 86

Wehipeihana, Emma 59

Whitaker, Chris 24, 86

Wichtel, Diana 30

Wikaira, Jeanette 40

Wilkins, Damien 19, 34, 62, 70

Williams, Steve 88

Wilson, Simon 61, 68, 81

Wilson, Sonya 40, 64

Wong, Edward 43, 60

Worrall, Tim 62

Yuzuki, Asako 73, 84

Friday 16 May Paraire 16 Mei

Sunday 18 May Rātapu 18 Mei

AWF25: What’s New

We know you love the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki: look out for these exciting new additions and fresh surprises.

STREETSIDE: BRITOMART has a new date! This much-loved street festival is moving to Friday 9 May.

A Big Night Out for Little Bookworms — come along to our first big opening night for our smallest bookworms.

Aotea Square comes alive with extra activations, entertainment and spaces to hang out.

Experience the city in A New Light with Marcus McShane’s cycle-led projection.

Kōrero Corner is back for another year of free, bite-sized sessions in a new location on Level 5 of the Aotea Centre.

A new history of us.

‘Becoming Aotearoa couldn’t be more timely.’ — NZ Geographic

‘A fluid, witty voice and a fascinating, fresh look at how Aotearoa, the people, came to be.’ — The Spinoff