Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
The weekend and it would seem that booklovers have flocked in from all over Auckland, and many other parts of the country too - I have spoken to people from Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Hamilton, Tauranga, and that is just folk I know.
One of the frustrations with the Festival is the running of three different events at the same time. You find yourself having to make almost impossible decisions as to which to attend.
For example this morning at 10.00am you had three choices:
1.An Hour with David Malouf
2.Love, Food,Wine & Travel - Sarah-Kate Lynch & Nicky Pellegrino
3.Commnwealth Writers: Readings from the four shortlisted Best First Book Authors
All three attracted good sized audiences with organisers scrambling to find more seats at the Commonwealth Writers event, 400 plus women and a dozen or so men (inlcuding me) turned up to listen to Sarah-Kate and Nicky while 300 plus turned out to hear David Malouf,
Pretty bloody impressive for 10.00am Saturday.
Love, Food, Wine & TravelThis was great fun. The authors - both tall, stylish and articulate women - were led in a most relaxed manner by tv/radio broadcaster Jim Mora. They looked like three friends sitting in a lounge at home having a chat. The only thing missing was the Chardonnay!
What a great subject - there are not many things, books and family of course, that interest me more than love, food, wine and travel.
Both authors are former editors of the New Zealand Womens Weekly, experienced journalists who have become highly successful authors over the past decade. When asked to define the genre into which their books fall, Nicky Pellegrino suggested popular women's fiction to which Sarah Kate-Lynch agreed with alacrity.
They talked of travel and research, their writing habits, (Lynch needs silence & isolation while Pellegrino can write while her husband is watching motorsport on tv in the next room), the discipline of writing (Lynch - this is a job, not a hobby), food & wine in their books (there is a lot of it), the similarity of their writing styles, their different approached to their own cooking (Lynch-structured, recipes, careful measurements, Pellegrino- unstructured, no recipes, seasonal food from garden & fridge), the importance, and difficulty of endings in fiction, their latest books, and a lot more all presented with huge doses of humour. Lynch seems irrepressible with a natural wit.
Mora made the job look easy, a consumate professional.The audience didn't want this session to end. A lovely start to the Festival day.
Interesting to note that both authors, while NZ-based are first published in the UK.
Link below t read The Bookman's reviews of these titles.
The Italian Wedding.
On Top of Everything
1 comment:
Wasn't this session a hoot! What fun. But you are wrong about the chardonnay, the only thing missing was the Champagne!
The audience lapped this up and they could have happily gone on for much longer. It was one of my festival highlights.
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