Event Spotlight: Tauranga Readers' and Writers' Festival 2015

Tauranga Arts Festival has launched its 2015 Literary Programme which features three international guests, two weekends of conversation, ideas and opinions, and for the first time offers a day pass ticket which is a buy three, get one free deal. For more information see the website. http://www.taurangafestival.co.nz/writers

Appearing on the weekend of October 24 and 25 are:

Christina Lamb – a British foreign correspondent who has been covering Afghanistan for more than 25 years. Her latest book, Farewell Kabul (published in April), is a personal account of the longest war ever fought by the US, and one of the longest fought by the UK. How did a group of religious students and farmers defeat the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on the ground? Christina, who was awarded an OBE in 2013, is in conversation with Wallace Chapman (Radio NZ National).

Phil Jarratt – a renowned surfing writer from Australia rode his first wave aged 9 and published his first article about surfing in 1968, aged 17. Since then he has edited Tracks magazine and the Australia edition of Surfer's Journal, been named among Australia’s 50 most influential surfers, worked for Quiksilver, and founded the Noosa Surfing Festival, the world’s largest surf carnival. His books include That Summer at Boomerang (2014), the story of Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku and a teenage Aussie girl on the eve of World War 1, while his best-selling Mr Sunset (about surf legend Jeff Hakman) was made into a film. In 1974, Phil spent his last few hundred dollars on a holiday package to Bali – the start of an adventure that has lasted a lifetime. In his 2014 book Bali: Heaven and Hell he offers a history of the island, interwoven with a personal memoir. Phil will be talking to Tony Wall (surfing) and Stephanie Johnson (Bali).

Riley Elliott – an avid spearfisherman, surfer, scuba diver, Riley is a PhD student in shark biology at the University of Auckland. His passion for sharks developed while working in South Africa where he began freediving with sharks (no cage!) and became addicted to the ‘surprising calm’ he felt. With a quarter of the world’s sharks and rays threatened with extinction, it turns out humans might be the more dangerous animal. Author of Shark Man (2014), Riley last year hosted a 30-part television series by the same name. He will be in conversation with Tony Wall.

Stephanie Johnson – in her latest novel, The Writers’ Festival, Stephanie possibly uses her own experiences, including as a founding board member of the Auckland Writers Festival, and at last year’s inaugural Australia and New Zealand Festival of Literature and Arts in London. What makes for a good festival and why are some festivals thought to treat their writers shabbily? The Writers’ Festival continues the story of characters first met in The Writing Class (2013).Stephanie joins Tauranga Arts Festival associate director Claire Mabey, who last year attended the same London festival, Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh to talk to Stephen Stratford.

Debra Daley – the award-winning novelist and screenwriter has set her two most recent novels in the 18^th century (Turning the Stones, 2014, and The Revelations of Carey Ravine, forthcoming) of England, Ireland and India. The Tauranga resident calls the period “a brilliant, lively age laced through with wit”. She joins Maori-Chinese playwright Mei-Lin Te Puea Hansen (The Mooncake and the Kumara) to talk to Claire Mabey.

 

Tracey Barnett – an Auckland journalist campaigning to change the law against mandatory detention of asylum seekers in New Zealand called, “We Are Better Than That”. She is a regular commentator in the media on asylum and refugee issues and will join Christina Lamb, currently covering the refugee crisis in Europe, to talk to Wallace Chapman.