Free Events at the Auckland Writers Festival

IN THIS ISSUE:   Lucky Us Stand By for the Stand Up Classicist Festival Gets Down and Dirty Win a Double Movie Pass! Festival Writers in the News Mrs McGinty and the Bizarre Plant FREE FESTIVAL EVENTS The Auckland Writers Festival team is committed to making events as accessible as possible. This year there are no less than 39 FREE events, many of which include international writers. You can see the Festival’s 2015 Honoured Writer, C.K. Stead at no cost as well as The Art of the Novel featuring David Mitchell (Ireland), Emily St. John Mandel (Canada) and Stephanie Johnson (NZ); the Four for Fifty Readings Sessions featuring Alan Cumming (Scotland/US), Witi Ihimaera (NZ), Damian Barr (Scotland) and Anna Smaill (NZ) and Tiny Ruins featuring singer song-writer Hollie Fullbrook (NZ) to name a few. The immensely popular Speaker’s Corner events, which were introduced last year, are all FREE. All of the Family Day events are FREE. Under 12 year-olds go FREE to Captain Underpants. Some events are free but ticketed, so be sure to check the festival programme for details. Please also remember that free events are on a strictly first in first served basis. Early arrival is recommended. The easiest way to see this year’s programme is via our searchable e-booklet. Click here to view it now, or forward it to a friend. LUCKY US US novelist Amy Bloom’s fourth novel Lucky Us is described by Janis Maslin of The New York Times as having ‘sharp, sparsely beautiful scenes that excitingly defy expectation...’ Bloom is hailed ‘a national treasure' by Michael Cunningham and by the Washington Post as ‘America’s Victor Hugo… whose picaresque novels roam the world, plumb the human heart and send characters into wild roulettes of kismet and calamity’. Also a psychotherapist, Amy  Bloom appears in two festival events – Lucky Us and Character and Story. We are absolutely thrilled to host her. More