Auckland Writers Festival: No longer just about books

What started as some writers talking to their readers has turned into a cultural event featuring street performers, boat trips and pop-up shows.

The 18^th Auckland Writers Festival attracted 65,000 people last year and is now the largest event of its kind in the country.

This year’s festival will run from May 16-21.

The writers will still be there – some 160 of them including 42 from overseas – but the range of events now includes debates, standup poetry, literary theatre and outdoor activities far removed from reading.

Heartland Bank has become the principal sponsor and will host husband and wife John Lanchester and Miranda Carter.

He is best known for his books on financial topics, including Whoops! about the global financial crisis and the novel Capital, while she is the biographer of Anthony Blunt, the art curator and one of the Cambridge spies for the Soviet Union.

Public discourse

Festival director Anne O’Brien says the event satisfies a strong demand for public discourse and engagement with the world of ideas.

“In a world where the media are under pressure, these are the places where people can come in a live space, connect with each other and think about who they are, how the world works and their place in it,” she says. “Audiences are hungry for that, particularly in New Zealand.”

Of course, the festival is also about selling books – lots of them.

“Sales are up, audiences are up and engagement is up. Books remain defiant in the face of all the doom.”

Ms O’Brien says the festival aims to widen the relationship between books and the outside world. For example, the author of a book on the Hauraki Gulf will lead a cruise to her favourite spots.

Auckland’s inner-city High St will become the scene for fringe activities. Other new venues include the Heartland Festival Room, also known as the Pacific Crystal Place in Aotea Square, and a restaurant at Sky City.

The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards will kick off the festival on May 16.

For NBR readers, a late confirmation is pending for an appearance by former publisher and now political thriller writer Barry Colman, whose A Line Too Far has turned into an Amazon bestseller.

Festival highlights

Current events/foreign affairs:
Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist whose latest is Thank You for Being Late
Hisham Matar, a Libyan expat based in London (The Return)
Caroline Brothers, Australian-born former New York Times foreign correspondent who writes novels about world events
Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for National Public Radio
John Lanchester will take part in the “Great Divide” debate and Miranda Carter will talk about crime fiction, which she writes under the name M J Carter

Other non-fiction:
Journalist Karl du Fresne on road trips and popular American music
Scientist James Gleick on the history of time travel
UK biographer A N Wilson, whose recent work includes the life of Charles Darwin

Fiction
George Saunders, US short-story prize winner whose first novel is Lincoln in the Bardo
Anne Enright, Ireland’s top novelist
Ian Rankin, the Scottish crime writer
Armando Iannucci, creator of TV satires Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, In the Loop and Veep

The full programme is in a 108-page booklet and online at www.writersfestival.co.nz. Bookings open on Friday, March 17.