Wonderful Array of Authors Hits Tauranga

Tauranga Arts Festival has two weekends of writers this year – see the October 24 and 24 line up here. http://thephantomparagrapher.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/event-spotlight-tauranga-readers-and.html

Day passes are $45 each or individual sessions $15 each (booking fees apply). Tickets are available from ticketek.co.nz See the full programme, including session times, at www.taurangafestival.co.nz/writers

Appearing on October 31 and November 1 are:

Steven Caroll – an Australian author who has written nine novels, including The Time We Have Taken, which won both the Commonwealth Writers’ Regional Prize and the Miles Franklin Award, and Spirit of Progress. Last year he published A World of Other People set in London in 1941 and the co-winner of the Australian Prime Minister’s Award for Literature in 2014. He writes in longhand, 1000 words every day, usually in the shed at his Melbourne home. He is influenced by the classics: TS Eliot, Proust and Beethoven, to whom he often listens while working
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Mandy Hager – Mandy comes trailing clouds of glory: Winner of this year’s Margaret Mahy Award for the best New Zealand Children’s Book (Singing Home the Whale); the 2015 writer-in-residence at Waikato University; winner of the 2014 Katherine Mansfield fellowship to Menton in France; winner of the 2014 LIANZA Young Adult Award for the most distinguished contribution to literature for children and young adults aged 13 years and above (Dear Vincent); and winner of the 2013 LIANZA Young Adult Fiction Award (The Nature of Ash).

Nicky Hager – Nicky has specialised in hard-to-document subjects, such as intelligence agencies and the unseen side of politics, for his six books which include Hollow Men (2006) and Dirty Politics (2014). He believes that his father’s refugee status and his mother’s upbringing in East Africa have strongly influenced his work and his desire for social justice.

Harry Ricketts – the festival’s busy man. He will join historian Damien Fenton to talk about World War 1 (Harry has written Strange Meetings (2012) about WW1 poets, in 2014 co-edited  How We Remember: New Zealanders and WW1 and has just released, again as co-editor, The Penguin Book of New Zealand War Writing); he will join fellow Victoria University lecturer Sydney Shep to talk about books in the digital age (Harry is longtime editor of the quarterly NZ Review of Books); he will appear with Steven Carroll to talk about the allure of cricket, particularly the different styles of the Australia and New Zealand teams (Harry is author of How to Catch a Cricket Match); and, finally, will take to the podium alone to talk us through “how to read a poem” (his latest volume of poetry was published this year, Half Dark).

Damien Fenton – His Mount Maunganui grandfather’s stories of the desert campaign of World War 2, fired young Damien’s imagination enough that he chose to study military history. Among his books are New Zealand and the First World War 1914-1919, commissioned by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage as part of the multi-agency WW100 project, and The Anzacs (2015). He is working on a book about the Ottoman Empire.

Joseph Romanos – will lead a discussion on October 31 – both a review and a preview – of the Rugby World Cup that also features mad-keen fan Toby Manhire and former Maori All Black captain and Portugal coach Errol Brain. Joseph is busy putting together a RWC book written by Keith Quinn, a project which they hope won’t jinx the All Blacks reaching the final. Keith will be finishing the book as soon after November 1 as possible.

 

Sydney Shep – is printer-in-residence at Victoria University, a book historian and a bookbinding designer. She will lead a Zine Craft workshop on October 31 and the next day join Harry Ricketts to talk to art historian Penelope Jackson about the value of books as objects and how the printed word is still thriving in the digital age.

Bryan Gould – is a New Zealand-born former Rhodes Scholar who became a British MP (twice) but was unsuccessful in a Labour Party leadership challenge and returned home to become vice-chancellor of Waikato University. He has published books about politics and economics and is working on a book about moral philosophy. He has retired to the eastern Bay of Plenty coast where he has a small vineyard.