The theme for this years' WORD Festival is Joy!
I'm absolutely joyful about the upcoming Queens of Atmosphere panel, one of the headlining acts of this Festival, celebrating some of the best writing from Aotearoa and beyond.
The lineup for Queens of Atmosphere features kiwis Catherine Chidgey and Michelle Duff, who'll share the stage with Australia's Charlotte Wood. The latest works from these authors are steeped in atmosphere. These are highly respected and prolific authors, judges of awards and award-winners in both their home countries and on the international stage.
Catherine Chidgey is known for the way she builds a sense of unease, then socks it to readers with astounding reveals in her gob-smacking stories. The Axeman's Carnival and Pet, her last two very different novels, left readers reeling with their conclusions.
The Book of Guilt, Chidgey's new novel, is no exception. I don't know how Chidgey comes up with such different subject matter - I hope to find out at this session. The Book of Guilt is the gripping story of a group of strangely identical children, isolated from society in run-down stately homes, dreaming of the day they will go to the seaside.
Michelle Duff is a journalist who has turned her pen to fiction. The current holder of the Michael King Writer's Centre residency 2025, she's the author of two biographies about Jacinda Ardern.
Duff has continued to focus on strong women in her fiction. Surplus Women is a provocative collection of female-focussed tales of characters who will stay with you long after you've read their stories - in which Duff ponders the many situations that women find themselves in, or create, at different stages of life.
The stories in Surplus Women are so resonant you can almost smell clouds of impulse rising from her characters.
Charlotte Wood writes both fiction and non-fiction. To date she's penned six novels, a non-fiction instructional work on creative writing and an inspirational book; The Luminous Solution, which explores what Wood herself has learned and how artists can teach self-actualisation. Her insight at WORD is bound to offer inspiration to anyone interested in creativity.
Wood's latest book, Stone Yard Devotional, is a book of the mind, set in a remote arid location in Australia. The central character, narrating the story, has stepped out of the responsibilities of marriage and managing a business to seek inner peace in an abbey full of nuns.
Ironically, the abbey is far from peaceful, with a plague of mice and the quite normal abrasion of interpersonal relationships. It's a homecoming of sorts for this character, her story beginning and ending at a gravesite.
Catherine Chidgey will be in three events this year, including The Cabinet of Curiosities and The Book of Guilt. Michelle Duff is chairing Strong Minded, where she will interview Radio New Zealand Broadcaster and war correspondent Susie Ferguson and investigative journalist Ali Mau, while Charlotte Wood appears in two events with Emily Perkins: Stone Yard Devotional and Elements of Fiction - an extension of their masterclass workshop.
More WORD
Check the programme online or pick up a printed copy from your library.
- Looking for a good read? Ask the experts stationed outside the TSB Space at the Tūranga Table.
- Keen to read short stories with others? Check out the Shared Reading group sessions at Tūranga Library on Sunday 31 August.
- WORD Christchurch website
- Follow WORD Christchurch on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok
- Our WORD Christchurch 2025 page - Find books by writers coming to this year's festival
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