The Auckland Readers and Writers Festival is on in 2 days…..an amazing opportunity for discovery (of new writers), inspiration (for reading and writing), and motivation (to bring what we can back to share with the readers (and writers) of Palmerston North.)
Personally I am looking forward to immersing myself in as many of the POETRY sessions as I can get to – featuring some of our most brilliant bards – Tusiata Avia, Karlo Mila, Kapka Kassabova, and Michele Leggott are a few not to be missed sessions. Sometimes you just have to HEAR poetry for it to come alive don’t you, so the festival is a wonderful opportunity to hear poets reading their own work. Magic! A highlight will be Poetry Idol on at the London Bar on Friday night – billed as a “riotous live literature sell-out”, and something I imagine would go down well in Palmy North, so watch out for my blog on this event!
As well as NZ’s own, overseas writers John Burnside (Scotland) and Heather O’Neill (Canada) promise to add to the poetry feast this year, and add to my sense of discovery as personally I am not familiar with either writer’s poetry. Burnside won the Whitbread Poetry Award for Asylum Dance in 2000 and although as I say I have not read any of O’Neill’s poetry (YET), I am currently reading and loving her debut novel “lullabies for little criminals” – recently shortlisted for the Orange Fiction Prize.
As if that’s not enough….Anne Enright (Ireland), winner of the Man Booker in 2007, and Hermione Lee (U.K.), whose latest biography is a (physically huge)work on Edith Wharton are on my hitlist.
Will keep you posted…….
Philippa
