One hundred writers coming to Auckland's big book festival

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival
Aotea Centre
May 9 – 13

The Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, New Zealand’s biggest festival of literature and ideas has announced its line‐up of more than 100 leading international and New Zealand writers and thinkers, including prizewinners Jeffrey Eugenides and Roddy Doyle.

Other major writers include cosmologist and public intellectual Lawrence Krauss, prizewinning Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings, spy fiction author Dame Stella Rimington, crime writer Peter James and New Zealand icon Maurice Gee.

The festival will be mainly presented at the Aotea Centre combining a dedicated two‐day schools’ programme with three days and nights of public sessions.

The Festival’s new Artistic Director Anne O’Brien says “This is a programme designed to reach out across the country, providing stimulation, insight and pleasure to all New Zealanders, no matter what their reading interests. With a stellar line‐up in and around the Festival’s Aotea Centre home, delivered with the flair and polish for which we have become known, there is something for everyone.”

Among the twenty‐three international writers so far confirmed are fiction authors Sebastian Barry (Ire), Jesmyn Ward (US), Charlotte Wood (UK) and A.D. Miller (UK) and Australian diva Kathy Lette.

Non fiction authors include biographer Caroline Moorehead, international economy consultant Chandran Nair, educational psychologist Barbara Arrowsmith Young (Can), evolution theorist Danny Vendramini (Aus), essayists Geoff Dyer (UK), Martin Edmond (Aus) as well as leading children’s writers Oliver Jeffers, Eoin Colfer, Mal Peet and Emily Rodda.

Spoken word performers are the Tony Award winning Lemon Anderson (US) and Australian Poetry Slam Champion Luka Lesson (Aus) who will light up the stage.

The New Zealand line‐up is headlined by a rare appearance with Maurice Gee, the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival’s inaugural Honoured New Zealand Writer. Gee will be joined by other major writers including Dame Anne Salmond, Dame Fiona Kidman, Witi Ihimaera, Emily Perkins, Anthony McCarten, Brian Boyd, Ian Wedde, Lloyd Geering, Anne Kennedy, Greg McGee and Rhys Darby.

There will be sessions at The University of Auckland and the Auckland Art Gallery with opportunities to hear from leading arts practitioners including Dick Frizzell, Tusi Tamasese, Doris de Pont and Nathan & Joel Haines. Other sessions will touch on filmmaking, literary prizes, contemporary Maori literature, the poetry of Tuwhare, the history of Remuera.

There are catered special events including Lunch with Dame Stella Rimington at Soul Bar, a pre‐Mothers’ Day High Tea at Auckland’s Langham Hotel, a Girls’ Night Out adventure combining Cable Bay wine tastings and canapés in a session with Kathy Lette, a Business Breakfast with international consultant Chandran Nair at the Langham Hotel, and the highly popular Poetry Idol.

www.writersfestival.co.nz
Tickets for all sessions go on sale 22 March starting at $15 at www.buytickets.co.nz
Free tickets for the session with Maurice Gee can be booked for under‐18s.