Changes to Tauranga line up

Tauranga Arts Festival may have lost one of its key overseas writers but has been able to call on top Kiwi speakers to fill the gap.

Due to unforeseen circumstances Pulitzer Prize-winning author and New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan has withdrawn from the programme. “It’s just one of those things,” festival director Jo Bond says. “William really regrets he can’t be here but we fully understand his reasons and wish him well. ”
Ms Bond notes that this is the first time in 10 festivals that a change has had to be made to the programme.
Mr Finnegan was due to appear in two writer sessions on Saturday, October 21 and Sunday, October 22.

Lives of Brine, which he was sharing with his old surfing buddy Phil Jarratt of Australia, has been renamed Lives on the Line and now features Mr Jarratt talking about his memoir alongside long-time Listener writer Diana Wichtel.

Ms Wichtel’s first book, Driving to Treblinka, about her Holocaust-survivor father, a Polish Jew, is published this month. Ms Wichtel moved to New Zealand from Canada with her mother and siblings aged 13. Her father was to follow but she never saw him again.

Alternative Facts retains the theme of global threats to democracy and media freedom and is now a conversation between well-known business and political journalist Rod Oram, who is one of the inaugural Edmund Hillary Fellows looking at fostering global change from New Zealand; long-time financial journalist and managing editor of the online NewsroomPro Bernard Hickey; and Professor Jonathan Boston, author of Safeguarding the Future: Governing in an Uncertain World, published this year as a BWB Text.

People holding tickets to either session are able to get a refund through Ticketek or can use the ticket they have to attend the new session.

“We apologise for any inconvenience,” Ms Bond says, “but we’re thrilled that we’ve been able to obtain top-class speakers in William’s place. It isn’t every day that there’s an opportunity to hear so many           quality speakers in one place.”

Lives on the Line: Saturday, October 21, 1-2pm. Alternative Facts:, Sunday, October 22, 2.30-3.30pm. Single tickets and day passes from Baycourt box office or Ticketek. See the full programme at www.taurangafestival.co.nz