Writers and Readers Festivals (RNZ)
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2012 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival: Broken...
Broken Britain is discussed by UK authors Stella Rimington, AD Miller and Geoff Dyer; with Robyn Congreve in the chair.
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2012 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival: Caroline...
Caroline Moorehead discusses with Carole Beu her books Human Cargo and A Train in Winter, which tells the story of 230 women of the French Resistance sent to Auschwitz.
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2012 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival: Sebastian...
Distinguished Irish author Sebastian Barry discusses his work with Jan Cronin.
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Chandran Nair - Consumptionomics
Chandran Nair from Hong Kong explores his theory of Consumptionomics, in this year's Michael King Memorial Lecture. Nevil Gibson from the NBR is in the chair.
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Maurice Gee
One of New Zealand's best-known contemporary authors looks back with publisher Geoff Walker over a life devoted to fiction.
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Roddy Doyle
Brian Edwards chairs a lively session at the 2012 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival with one of Ireland's best-known contemporary authors.
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New Zealand Crime
Three of New Zealand's most prominent crime writers - Paul Cleave, Vanda Symon and Paul Thomas - discuss how their stories are affected by their distinctly New Zealand setting.
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Examining Place
Denise Mina writes about the gritty streets of Glasgow and Ron Rash the remote Appalachian Mountains. They explore how location infuses their very different work.
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The life and times of Germaine Greer
A personal conversation with a major literary figure of the last 40 years about her upbringing, and how she came to write some of the influential books she has created.
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Where were you in 72?
Three leading feminists - Germaine Greer, Sandra Coney and Marilyn Waring - examine how the place of women has changed in the last 40 years.
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Germaine Greer - Shakespeare's Wife
A lively exploration of the life of Shakespeare's wife by the noted writer and social critic Germaine Greer, recorded at the 2012 NZ International Arts Festival. Linda Hardy is in the chair.
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Michael King Memorial Lecture: on science and doubt
There's no denying "doubt" is crucial to science and drives it forward, but it also makes science, and scientists, vulnerable to misrepresentation, according to Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She explores this theme in the 2011 Michael King Memorial Lecture.
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Barbara Strauch on the secrets of the brain
Science Editor at The New York Times, Barbara Strauch has written books on the human brain in teenage and middle age years, and how research is expanding our knowledge of its development and function. She discusses her discoveries with Kim Hill.
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Goodbye Sarajevo
Now living in Auckland, sisters Hana Schofield and Atka Reid were caught up in 1992 in the middle of the civil war which tore Yugoslavia apart. Then aged twelve, Hana boards one of the last UN evacuation buses to flee the besieged city of Sarajevo. Her 21-year-old sister Atka stays behind to look after their five younger siblings. Atka's daily life is punctuated by sniper and mortar attacks and desperate food shortages as she and the family struggle to survive. The authors of Goodbye...
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Madhur Jaffrey on a life devoted to Indian food
Born in Delhi, Madhur Jaffrey was is an actress and cookbook writer who is regarded by many as a world authority on Indian food. She talks with Alexa Johnston about her astonishing life, her family, and her dedication to demystifying Indian cooking.
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A.A. Gill, food and restaurant critic
Feared by some in the food trade for the ferocity of his judgments, the writer A.A. Gill is a TV and restaurant critic for the UK's Sunday Times. His witty, acerbic and honest conversation with chef, and television presenter, Al Brown about food, travel, and life, is one of the highlights of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.
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Madhur Jaffrey
Actress and best-selling author Madhur Jaffrey has been one of the most influential people in taking Indian cookery to a global audience.
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What good are the arts?
Three lively commentators on the arts Sarah Thornton, Denis Dutton and John Carey discuss its complexities, contradictions, and enduring attractions with Linda Tyler. John Carey's controversial book What Good Are the Arts? (2005) tackled a number of questions designed to agitate art-lovers:"What is a work of art? Is 'high art' superior? Can science help? Do the arts make us better? Can art be a religion?". Denis Dutton's The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution asks why we...
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Antony Loewenstein: My Israel Question
With Treasa Dunworth in the chair, Antony Loewenstein examines the prospects of the Middle East peace process in the new geo-political context, and alternative suggestions on how to tackle the crisis, mapping out where hope lies for a resolution. Antony Loewenstein's bestseller, My Israel Question, generated a storm of controversy, critical praise and robust public debate when it was first published in 2006. A third, fully updated and expanded edition of his forensic discussion of the...
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Jill Dawson and Elizabeth Smither
Jill Dawson has published six novels and also writes poetry. Her latest novel, The Great Lover, captures the allure of poet Rupert Brooke and his intriguing relationships, in the euphoric period before the First World War, in Cambridge and later in Tahiti. Elizabeth Smither is an award-winning poet who has just published her fifth novel, Lola. With the wisdom and wry humour of maturity, it explores love and death, music and friendship and is set in Australia and New Zealand. Carole Beu is in...
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Thomas Keneally and Anne Salmond
Two master storytellers with very different backgrounds talk with Kim Hill about the origins of their success, their shared passion for history, the joys of discovery, and the satisfaction that comes with bringing forgotten stories back to life. Anne Salmond is one of New Zealand's most pre-eminent historians, and her recent publication, the acclaimed Aphrodite's Island (2009), is the first to take her off-shore to Tahiti. Thomas Keneally is a well-known and prolific writer of fiction and...
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Michael Otterman: Erasing Iraq
In conversation with Sean Plunket, journalist and human rights"consultant"Michael Otterman explores the recent history of Iraq. Highly critical of what the USA has achieved since George W. Bush's proclamation of the end of hostilities in Iraq and the 'Mission Accomplished' message given seven years ago, Otterman focuses on the one million Iraqi dead, five million refugees, and what he considers the decimation of an entire culture and way of life. He argues that western governments and the...
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Religion: what is it good for?
Three panellists discuss their divergent views on the global and regional rise of religion and its impact on every-day lives, particularly on the vulnerable residents in war-torn parts of the world including the Middle East. Adrian Wooldridge (Schumpeter columnist for The Economist), Michael Otterman (Erasing Iraq) and Antony Loewenstein (My Israel Question) consider the issues in this lively session chaired by Sean Plunket.
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Publishing in the 21st Century
Sam Elworthy, Laurie Chittenden, Michael Heyward and Derek Johns consider whether the future of the book in a digital, technological, future. Noel Murphy chairs.
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Collecting Worlds
Kamila Shamsie and Ilija Trojanow explore from their positions on the margins of their adopted cultures what it means to write for, and about, a globalised world. John Newton is in the chair.
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Once Upon a Time
Margo Lanagan and Neil Gaiman discuss their approaches towards creating literature for young adult readers. In the chair is Kate De Goldi.
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Simon Schama and Margo Lanagan
Simon Schama and Margo Lanagan reflect on their different approaches to narrative and history, in a session chaired by Lydia Wevers.
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Richard Dawkins
This outspoken atheist and evolutionary biologist sets out his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Bernard Beckett chairs.
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Simon Schama
One of the UK's leading historians discusses his craft, and explores why he uses television as a key means of communication to a wide audience. In the chair is Sean Plunket.
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International authors on the next 100 Years
"I'm wondering if… we will have a more balanced hedonism, a more balanced understanding of pleasure, of the art of living. I would hope that… economists might begin to envisage more sustainable, but less dynamically growing economies that privilege values other than economic strength, because we know these are the things we like living for - the pleasures of life, love and art, and creativity. " Sean Plunket chairs an industrial-strength panel of leading international authors considering...
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Sam Mahon and Greg McGee
"Although this is not the truth, it's actual." Beginning with readings from the self-described "odd men out" of New Zealand literature, this session traces Greg McGee's writing of a tv miniseries on Erebus story, and Sam Mahon's new manuscript about a funeral. Their conversation entertainingly surveys the literary, political, and arts scene in New Zealand, The author David Geary is in the chair.
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Nicky Pellegrino and Sarah-Kate Lynch
"When you've been fired and made redundant, you tend to lose faith in the people who employ you. And you think that you might like to employ yourself for a while, because you can guarantee that you won't fire, or make yourself redundant. And you can guarantee to give yourself more holidays, and have whatever chair you like." This breezy, informative session features two popular New Zealand writers talking about the business of writing with humour, irony and self-deprecation. The audience...
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The Michael King Memorial Lecture – Judith Thurman on...
"Some glittering, eventful lives are in fact, repetitive and depressing… It's the drama of individuation which gives a biography its suspense, and cuts through the trivia of life to its vital mystery." Judith Thurman presents the Michael King Memorial Lecture, talking about some of her deep experience as a biographer of figures as diverse as Colette and Isak Dinesen - who was the subject of the award-winning movie Out of Africa. The difference between capturing the lives of a woman who was...
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New Yorkers
"Every fact in the New Yorker is checked. Every fact. Every name, every place, every price, every noun, every adjective… (even) the cartoons are checked." In a good-humoured and lively session, New Yorker staff Hendrik Hertzberg, James Surowiecki, Judith Thurman talk with Rhonda Sherman about the history of the leading USA magazine. They share anecdotes and reminiscences, exploring how the 85-year-old institution has changed in recent years. The difficulty of being positive, how President...
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Ak Prog 4: Travel Writing
Travel was once seen as a rite of passage for New Zealanders, but today's decision to get on an aeroplane is not so simple. Graeme Lay, Lloyd Spencer Davis and Thomas Kohnstamm explore areas in common to their very different approaches towards travel writing. Kapka Kassabova is in the chair. Graeme Lay's Inside the Cannibal Pot is a new kind of travel book which explores how and why we travel. Lloyd Spencer Davis's Looking for Darwin describes a journey both 'through the heart and mind' and...
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Ak Prog 3: Pavlova with Everything
Is there a New Zealand cuisine or have we been swept away into a miasma of 'Asian-Pacific fusion'? Food writers Helen Leach, Alexa Johnston and Ray McVinnie discuss with Lauraine Jacobs the state of New Zealand cuisine past and present. Helen Leach's The Pavlova Story looks at the development of this national dish in New Zealand kitchens. Chef and food writer Ray McVinnie joins Helen and Alexa Johnston (Ladies, A Plate) to take an affectionate look at favourite dishes which have graced our...
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Ak Prog 2 2008: I Must go Down to the Sea Again
In this second of a series of panel discussions recorded in May, Joan Druett, Mary McCallum, and Barbara Else talk with Graham Beattie about how the ocean around New Zealand connects some very different historical books. Joan Druett is one of our most widely published authors, as novelist and maritime historian. Joan's most recent book Island of the Lost is an account of an 1864 shipwreck on the bleak Auckland Islands. Newcomer Mary McCallum's atmospheric novel The Blue is set in 1938 in...
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Aucklandness
Auckland as a location and an imaginative idea is explored by writers Stephanie Johnson, Derek Hansen and Paula Morris, with Paula Green in the chair. Stephanie Johnson's work explores the city of her birth, from 19th-century Parnell in Belief to 1960s Manukau in Music from a Distant Room. Derek Hansen brings to life the landscape of 1950s Ponsonby in Remember Me. Paula Morris explores contemporary Maori, Polynesian, and Asian Auckland in Queen of Beauty and Hibiscus Coast. Paula Green is in...
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WN 2008 Prog 5: Timelords
Part five of the Writers and Readers week discussions. Panellists Patricia Grace, David Mitchell and Alexis Wright take part in a discussion chaired by Jane Stafford. Patricia Grace, winner of the 2007 Neustadt International Prize, once wrote "there's a way the older people have of telling a story, a way where the beginning is not the beginning, the end is not the end." Her writing demonstrates that a story need not proceed in a straight line. David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas' opens with what...
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WN 2008 Prog 4: The Big Questions
What is the difference between a story and a scientific explanation? How do the two fit together, and how can we use both in our attempt to make sense of the world? These are the big questions preoccupying award-winning novelist and teacher Bernard Beckett in Falling for Science. Zoologist and filmmaker Lloyd Spencer Davis repeatedly asks "What the hell am I doing here?" - in the scientific, religious and personal senses - in Looking for Darwin, an account of his globetrotting journey in...
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WN 2008 Prog 3: Don't Mention the War
"Two World Wars and one World Cup," chant English football supporters at their German counterparts. On the pitch and elsewhere, the repercussions of World War II continue. In this programme three award-winning novelists - one English, one German, one New Zealander - discuss how the war has affected them, their writing and their respective countries. In the novels of Ian McEwan, including Black Dogs and Atonement, the conflict's legacy is frequently brought to bear on relationships,...
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WN 2008 Prog 2: Writing 9/11
"After a couple of hours at their desks, on September 12, 2001, all the writers on earth were reluctantly considering a change of occupation" (Martin Amis). In this programme three very different fiction writers talk about their 9/11 stories. Patrick McGrath, a British expatriate and long-time resident of New York, tells three stories of the city in Ghost Town: Tales of Manhattan Then and Now, each of which explores the revolutionary violence that has shaped a nation. The British journalist...
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WN 2008 Prog 1: The Cost of Iraq
According to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the war in Iraq will become the world's first three trillion dollar war. He joins cartoonist Garry Trudeau, novelist and journalist James Meek and theatre director Nigel Jamieson, to discuss the true costs of Iraq with John Campbell. A long-time critic of the war, Stiglitz has very recently published The Three Trillion Dollar War. Trudeau, in his celebrated comic Doonesbury, has taken up the task of not only berating the Bush...
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AK 2007 Prog 6: Travel Writing
"Haven't they got anything better to do?" is the ironic subtitle of this encounter between a group of very different travel writers. Travel stories from the USA are recounted by Jo and Gareth Morgan ('Backblocks America'); bicycling in South America in Eleanor Meecham's 'Llamas & Empanadas'; and travelling in Tibet in Ian Robinson's alarmingly-titled 'You Must Die Once'. TV cameraman Geoff Mackley chases bad weather all over the world in 'Extreme Danger' and Pico Iyer reflects on the...
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AK 2007 Prog 5: Non-fiction in New Zealand
A panel discussion tracing the extraordinary growth in popularity of locally-produced non-fiction. Two publishers (Peter Dowling from Reed, and Mary Varnham from Awa Press) and an expert in creative non-fiction (Harry Ricketts) map out the salient features of this rapidly-unfolding literary territory. Graeme Hunt is in the chair.
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Ak 2007 Prog 4: Writing about Visual Art
Linda Tyler chairs a wide-ranging session in which Hamish Keith, NewZealand's most senior writer on art, Justin Paton, one of the most lucid of our younger generation of critics and curators, and Matthew Collings, a leading artist and critic from the UK, consider the practice of their craft. From the paintings and writings of Colin McCahon to the media coverage of the Cool Britannia generation, this conversation provides fresh insight into what makes good (and bad) art description,...
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AK 2007 Prog 3: The Art of Translation
The international publishing scene depends on translation, as it opens books to new markets and audiences. Three writers who have an intimate knowledge of translation consider the complexities and challenges of the process, which at its best involves a high level of collaboration between translator and author. The panel features the award-winning Andre Makine, born in the USSR, but now based in France, Linda Olsson from Sweden and France's Pierre Furlan, who has translated both Elizabeth...
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AK 2007 Prog 2: Demon Seed and Damaged Babies
Nightmare childhoods and damaged lives are laid bare in the very different work of Lionel Shriver, author of the award-winning 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'; and Paul Broks, whose study of neuropsychology 'Into the Silent Land' was a surprise bestseller. Despite their different approaches to storytelling, both writers find a lot of common territory, in a conversation moderated by psychiatrist Dr Jan Reeves.
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AK 2007 Prog 1: Bad Dads in Meltdown
Chaired by Festival co-director Peter Wells, this lively session includes extensive reading by three very different authors whose autobiographical work provides different perspectives on growing up with fathers who behaved abusively and damagingly towards their families. Intriguingly, the theme of post-colonial experience is common to The Wah-Wah Diaries by Richard E Grant, Heartland by Neil Cross, and Deep Beyond the Reef by Owen Scott.
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CH 2006 Prog 3: Telling True Stories
If writing fiction is the art of the possible, then writing non-fiction can be seen as the seen as the art of the probable There seems to be an almost insatiable demand for our non-fiction to be served up in an enticing and satisfying way and Ken Haley, journalist and author of Emails From the Edge, along with Anna Funder and Christopher Kremmer, are all Australian authors who consider the issues involved with the practice of their craft. In the chair is Christopher Moore, arts editor of the...
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CH 2006 Prog 2: A Novel way to make a living
Chair Owen Marshall brings together a group of writers to discuss how they make their living from writing long-form fiction. The panellists discussing the business of writing novels are Emily Perkins, Stuart McLean, Paula Morris, and Glen Duncan.
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CH 2006 Prog 4: The rise of historical fiction
This session brings together the New Zealand writers Rachael King, and Philip Temple, and British writer Emma Darwin to talk about why we can't get enough of historical fiction. Barbara Larson from the New Zealand publication house Longacre Press is in the chair.
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CH 2006 Prog 1: Writing for Young Adults
Chaired by Kate de Goldi, this session brings together the celebrated New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy and Australian writer Marcus Zusak, discussing a wide range of issues about writing for older children and young adults. Margaret Mahy is undoubtedly one of the world's leading and most gifted writers of the difficult genre of books for young adults. In this panel discussion recorded at the Press Christchurch Writers' Festival in September 2006 she talks about issues which affect her work...
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CH 2006 Prog 5: World War II in fiction and non-fiction
The final programme in the coverage of the Press Christchurch Writers' Festival session brings together four writers who have taken very different approaches towards representing the Second World War: Patrica Grace, Markus Zusak, Julian Novitz, and Alison Parr. Is fiction or non-fiction better at capturing the immediacy and intensity of armed conflict? The session's chaired by Alan Marriott.
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