Powerful line-up for 10th Tauranga Festival

Tauranga Arts Festival has launched its tenth programme, including two weekends of writers and speakers, a performance where storytelling is king, and a creative writing workshop.
Appearing at Labour Weekend (October 21-23) are Australian novelist (The Secret River trilogy) and more recently non-fiction writer Kate Grenville (My Mother’s Story and The Case Against Fragrance), Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize winners Stephan Daisley and Catherine Chidgey, YA author Kate De Goldi, Dame Lynley Dodd whose latest book Scarface Claw, Hold Tight! will be fresh out, and art crime writer Penelope Jackson.

The weekend also features Australian surfing writer Phil Jarratt, who in August published his memoir, Life of Brine. Jarratt is bringing his 2017 History Channel documentary to the festival, which will screen as an open-air Night Owl Cinema presentation on October 21. Men of Wood and Foam tells the story of six mates who became Australia’s pioneering surfboard makers. Jarratt will also team up with Waikato University writer-in-residence and poet Bob Orr to talk about the siren call of the sea.

October 28 is the first Raa Maumahara National Day of Commemoration and the festival marks that with historian Vincent O’Malley (The Great War for New Zealand), Witi Ihimaera and Hemi Kelly (Sleeps Standing, a factual and fictional account of the 1864 Battle of Orakau), Karyn Hay and Lindsey Dawson talking about their historical novels each partly set in 19th century Tauranga, and a panel of six New Zealanders addressing the topic, Our Place to Stand.
Closing the festival on October 29 are Helene Wong and Witi Ihimaera talking about their memoirs, Phil Gifford on men’s health, and Shamubeel Eaqub, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Oram who will set this country straight!

Award-winning novelist Paula Morris offers to put writers, aspiring or otherwise, through their paces on October 29 at her Fiction Boot Camp (places limited to 20).
William Yang, whose ancestors migrated to Australia more than 100 years ago, is internationally renowned for his photographic and film work exploring social diversity, belonging and travel. As well as performing The Story Only I Can Tell on October 24, he will also work with four Tauranga migrants to allow them to share their stories before his show.
See the full programme at www.taurangafestival.co.nz