The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival

6 – 8 May, 2011
The Press Christchurch Writers Festival will stage a mini-festival in 2011 as a way of saying thank you to its loyal supporters.

A full, four-day festival had been planned for early September this year (poster above) but it was cancelled following the September 4 earthquake and its aftershocks. Some of the festival's international writers got as close as Australia before being told the festival was cancelled, while others, such as British author Simon Winchester, pic right, held fundraising events for quake-damaged Christchurch in other New Zealand centres.


``We are aware that while our audience understood our decision to cancel, there was also some disappointment that the event could not go ahead,'' says festival manager Marianne Hargreaves. ``It was a very hard decision to make. So we're pleased to be able to announce new dates for 2011. We also expect to put on some of the sessions that had strong audience support in 2010.''

The 2011 mini-festival will be held at the Christchurch Art Gallery auditorium from May 6 to May 8. Some of the sessions expected to return from the 2010 programme include ‘Ladies a Plate’, ‘Your Skirt’s Too Short’ and ‘Speed Dating an Author’.

There will also be new international guests, in association with the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, who generously offered to help the Christchurch festival in the aftermath of the September earthquake, Hargreaves said. Popular events from the past, such as the schools programme and ‘Poetry for Lunch’, will also return.

The Bookman will keep you posted as further details come to hand.