The biennial book binge that is the WORD Writers & Readers Festival is back for 2016, and the programme launched tonight at The Press building on Gloucester Street is bursting with authorial tastiness.
Christchurch will play host to over 150 writers and speakers over four crazy, crazy days and nights on the 24th to the 28th August. The range of events embraces the standard hour-long author talk, panel debates, poetry readings, book launches, a comedy panel show, Pechakucha night, exhibitions, workshops, storytelling, the Ngaio Marsh Award Ceremony for Best Crime Novel, lectures, family events, a historical walking tour and a fringe festival. Blimey.
Literary Director Rachael King has put together a programme with themes that cover the full torrid schmozzle of humanity: life and death, gender, sexuality, indigenous rights, migration, the climate and yes, even the F-word ...feminism.
Some stand-out events include:
No Sex Please, We're Teenagers
Young Adult novelists David Levithan, opens a new window, Ted Dawe , opens a new windowand sex-therapist Frances Young discuss with chair Mandy Hager the role of sex in literature. What are the risks and rewards?
2050
Tim Flannery, opens a new window, Mai Chen, opens a new window, Bronwyn Hayward, opens a new window and Shelia Watt-Cloutier chaired by Kim Hill paint a picture of earth in 2050 with reference to climate, diversity, indigenous rights and citizenship. Utopia or dystopia?
Busted: Feminism & Pop Culture
Debbie Stoller, opens a new window is the co-founder and editor of BUST magazine and authored the Stitch n Bitch craft series. She talks craftiness and feminism.
Oratory on the Ōtākaro (Avon River)
Join Joseph Hullen for a 40 minute tour and discover the rich shared Māori and European history of the river Avon.
The programme is positively bulging with energising, stimulating and inspiring book-ish events, so unleash the Christchurch culture vultures!
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