Record numbers are expected to attend the country’s biggest
festival of words and ideas, the Auckland Writers Festival, which opens
today.
Ticket issues for the more than 100 festival events are
tracking to match, if not exceed, the 53,500 attendances in 2014.
The Festival features some of the world’s leading
scientists, novelists, historians, children’s writers, poets and playwrights
including Haruki Murakami who was recently named one of the world’s 100
most influential figures; the biggest UK children’s author to debut this century, David Walliams; every
boys’ favourite comical hero Captain Underpants (aka Dav Pilkey);
respected New Zealand poet, critic and novelist, C.K. Stead; UK Poet
Laureate Carol Ann Duffy; globally renowned medical writer and surgeon
Atul Gawande; Scottish actor, writer, broadcaster, director, producer and musician Alan
Cumming; lauded New Zealand artist and writer Grahame Sydney; Australian
National Living Treasure Tim Winton; New Zealand’s favourite satirical
writer Steve Braunias; British investigative journalist Nick
Davies, responsible for uncovering the News of the World phone
hacking affair; New Zealand law legend Sir Peter Williams QC; Booker
Prize winning novelist and poet Ben Okri; festival co-founder and
award-winning novelist Stephanie Johnson; England’s über scientist Philip
Ball; internationally-acclaimed NZ singer/songwriter Hollie Fullbrook
(aka TINY RUINS); Australia’s biggest-selling non-fiction writer Peter
FitzSimons; outspoken Chinese journalist and writer Xinran;
multi-award winning New Zealand novelist Witi Ihimaera and New York’s
most irresistible literary critic Daniel Mendelsohn.
The Festival, now in its 15th year, runs until 17
May.
Festival director, Anne O’Brien says she is delighted to be
offering events of such interest to New Zealanders.
“New Zealanders have always had a strong appetite for books
and writing and it is hugely pleasing to see so many choosing to celebrate
their love of the written word within the Festival experience, amongst
inquisitive fellow book-lovers.”
“We are also thrilled for the authors, 37 of
whom have travelled from the Northern Hemisphere to share their books and ideas
with us alongside their New Zealand counterparts,” says Ms O’Brien.
The festival offers a huge variety of events including
interviews, debates, conversations, poetry, readings, children’s events,
workshops, concerts, lunches and soap box stir-ups.
While several of this year’s headline sessions have sold
out, there are still tickets available to many events including: An Evening
with Alan Cumming, Captain Underpants, Hack Attack, H is for Hawk: Helen
Macdonald; The Media Revolution and An Hour with Tim Winton.
There are 39 FREE events in the festival, part of the
festival’s commitment to ensuring there is something to appeal to all budgets.
The Festival’s Family Day runs all day Sunday, 17 May.
Crafted for 2-10 year olds, some of the country’s favourite children’s writers
feature, including: Raymond McGrath, Jenny Palmer, Zak Waipara and
Donovan Bixley, who will entertain with cartoon workshops, rhyming,
crafting, reading and drawing. Family Day events are FREE, but some are
ticketed for capacity so be sure to check the festival website for details.
The Festival’s Gala Night theme is True Stories
Told Live: Straight Talking. On Thursday 14 May, Eight writers deliver a
seven-minute true story, propless and scriptless. Be entertained by Kiwi
comedian and author Michele A’Court, US novelist Amy Bloom, The
Good Wife star and memoirist Alan Cumming, Australia’s best-selling
non-fiction writer Peter FitzSimons, Waitangi Tribunal member and writer
Aroha Harris, Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri, celebrated
short-story writer Nic Low and Australian public intellectual Helen
Garner.
Join us in what promises to be an insightful and poignant
conversation with this year’s Honoured New Zealand Writer – C.K. Stead.
Stead’s singular place in the cultural life of this country is celebrated in
this FREE session to end the festival on Sunday 17 May at 6pm.
Take part in a giant, public book club celebrating this
year’s Great Kiwi Classic: Owls do Cry by Janet Frame on
Sunday 17 May at 4.30pm.
The poets are out in force this year with British Poet
Laureate Carol Ann Duffy in two events: The World’s Wife
performed with Rachel House and Fiona Samuel and music by Dave
Long and a solo session chaired by our very own John Campbell; Irish
poet Vona Groake judges this year’s Sarah Broom Poetry Prize; the
slamming sensation that is Poetry Idol is always a great night out; and
you can spend an hour discovering a different beat to Singapore with the
country’s grand-master poet, Edwin Thumboo.
Solo actress extraordinaire, Rebecca Vaughan returns
following a sell-out season of Austen’s Women in Dalloway; an
adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
Art, animals and the people who write about them feature in
the Festival’s Gallery series. UK scientist Philip Ball talks Colour
in Art; Lloyd Spencer Davis reveals all about penguins from his
journeys to Antarctica, The Galapagos and Argentina; Greg O’Brien
incorporates poems from his latest collection Whale Years in a
session infused with the sound and visuals from Phil Dadson; one of New
Zealand’s most influential archaeologists, Dave Veart introduces us to
the history of New Zealand toys, explaining why boys made butter churns out of
meccano instead of buildings in Seriously Fun; Jim Allen, will
inspire and challenge in The Skin of Years and anthropologist Helen
Leach explains that a lot more happens in the kitchen than just making
scones in At The Bench.
The Auckland Writers
Festival warmly thanks its Gold Partners: The University of Auckland,
Freemasons Foundation, New Zealand Listener, ASB Community Trust,
Creative New Zealand and ATEED; and all our Silver, Bronze and Supporting
Partners.
We are enormously grateful
to our Festival patrons for their enthusiasm and generosity.
Go to www.ticketmaster.co.nz
to purchase tickets. For the full 2015 Auckland Writers Festival programme go
to www.writersfestival.co.nz
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