All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Patrick Radden Keefe was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize for Empire of Pain, his expose of The Sackler Family's role in the opioid crisis. His blend of scrupulous reporting, literary skill and deep commitment to truth and justice has helped bring untold human stories to light and systems of power to account. His body of work includes Say Nothing, Chatter, The Snakehead his newest work London Falling.

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3. Patrick Radden Keefe

Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Join one of The New Yorker's most decorated long-time staff writers and the Orwell and Baillie Gifford Prize-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe. Over a delicious two-course lunch he'll reflect on his esteemed career at the forefront of investigative journalism, introduce his new book London Falling, reveal what the years of rigorous reporting behind his books entail, and take some of your questions

4. Lunch with Patrick Radden Keefe

Metita

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. The winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the country's biggest literary award, joins convenor of the fiction judges Craig Cliff to discuss their winning book. With the winner revealed at the Ockham NZ Book Awards during Festival week, we can't tell you yet who will be in the interviewee seat. However, with recent recipients the calibre of Damien Wilkins, Catherine Chidgey and Emily Perkins, you're going to want a front-row seat.

14. The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction 2026 Winner

Hunua Room, Level 1, Aotea Centre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Eight writers speak to a moment in their life or work where their compass was reset that set them on a course truer to themselves. Telling us about their new Norths, their True Norths: Witi Ihimaera (Te Whanau a Kai, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngati Ira and Ngati Porou);T?me Iti (Ngai Tuhoe); Tayari Jones; Patrick Radden Keefe; Elizabeth Knox; R.F. Kuang; Yann Martel; Michael Pedersen. Hosted by Miriama McDowell (Ngati Hine, Ngapuhi).

6. Festival Gala Night: Resetting the Compass

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. A leading expert in medieval illuminated manuscripts, Christopher de Hamel recounts in his memoir, The Migrants, his first discovery of manuscripts as a young boy in Dunedin Public Library and the remarkable life path they set him on. In this lecture, de Hamel relates the story of why and when medieval European manuscripts were first brought to New Zealand - and the story of history, migration and colonialism their long journeys tell.

21. Discovering Medieval Manuscripts in Aotearoa New Zealand

Waitakere Room, Aotea Centre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Charlotte Macdonald's Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and across the British Empire explores the period 1840s to 1870 when thousands of British soldiers lived and served in NZ. In this lecture, Macdonald draws on a lifetime of scholarship, rich archival data and personal accounts to explore the lives of men (and some women) stationed here and examines the structures, experiences and lasting legacy of military occupation on NZ.

17. Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in Aotearoa New Zealand

Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Acclaimed literary translator Daniel Hahn is known for his translations from Portuguese, Spanish and French and his work with the Translators Association, the Society of Authors and English PEN. In this beginner-friendly masterclass, he'll reveal how a piece of fiction moves between languages in the hands of a translator. There'll be discussion of the choices, challenges, quirks and joys that translators encounter when working on a text.

12. Daniel Hahn: An Introduction to Translation

Waihorotiu Room, Aotea Centre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Join Michael Pedersen (Muckle Flugga) and Rachael King (Song of the Saltings) in conversation about their atmospheric novels that harness the power of island settings, and deep ancient forces of myth to create immersive coming-of-age narratives in worlds poised between old and new, lore and reality.

37. Saltwater, Solitude and Songs of the Sea

Limelight, Aotea Centre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. The adult programme kicks off with an Opening Night Gala, but why should the grown-ups get all the fun? Back by very popular demand, our big opening night for the smallest bookworms returns in a fast-paced night of thrills, joy and creative chaos. Featuring Claire Mabey, Toby Morris, Zak Waipara (Ngati Porou, Rongowhakaata, Ngati Ruapani, Ngati Kahungunu) and Daniel Hahn. Hosted by comedy queen, Johanna Cosgrove. All before bedtime!

44. A Big Night Out for Little Bookworms

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Each week brings a new twist in the story of creative expression and intellectual property in the age of AI. Karen Hao, author of the New York Times bestseller Empire of AI; leading NZ author Catherine Chidgey, whose work was among that scraped by Anthropic; and Sam Irvine of Copyright Licensing Aotearoa take stock of where the AI-author relationship stands today, and how writers and readers might navigate the ever-shifting terrain ahead.

30. Authors and AI: A Moment of Reckoning?

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In his Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted He Puawai, plant diversity expert and emeritus professor of botany Philip Garnock-Jones has selected 100 native species that represent the full range of the country's flowers: from familiar iconic flowers of kowhai, msnuka and pohutukawa to oddities such as the water-pollinated flowers of eelgrass, bat-pollinated blossoms of kiekie, and the world's smallest flowers, Wolffia.

28. He Puawai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Historian Vincent O'Malley is author of major works exploring Maori-Pakeha relations, the New Zealand Wars and the Waikato War. For his next project, he explores Irish immigration to NZ, and the historical interactions between the Irish and M?ori. It's a project for which he has been awarded a Judith Binney Trust Fellowship and will see him draw on archival research in NZ, Britain, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

25. Vincent O'Malley: From Aotearoa New Zealand to the Emerald Isle

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In her first novel since 2018, and her first book since her interrogating memoir The Mirror Book, Charlotte Grimshaw's Black Monk is part psychological thriller, part family saga. It's a daring new novel which explores shame, addiction, truth and the stories we tell to survive. The protagonist is confronted by her brother's spiral into addiction, and the memories their shared past evokes.

35. Charlotte Grimshaw

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Lily King is the Kirkus Prize and Whiting Award-winning author of seven books, including Euphoria, Writers & Lovers, and Heart the Lover, which the New York Times Book Review hailed "her best work yet". In this masterclass King focuses on how fact and imagination can be blended to create powerful fiction and guides you on the ways lived moments (from our life or the life of another) can be blended with our imagination to tell the truest story.

23. Lily King: Two Truths and a Lie

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In this masterclass, Samuel Johnson Prize winner and Orwell and Pulitzer Prize shortlisted journalist Barbara Demick (Daughters of the Bamboo Grove; Eat the Buddha; Nothing to Envy) reveals some of the techniques modern journalists employ: from defector interviews, to open source intelligence, to social media. She shares tricks of the trade used to bring stories from some of the globe's most restricted areas to light.

61. Barbara Demick: Covering Repressive Regimes

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. When AI journalist Karen Hao began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. In Empire of AI - an instant New York Times bestseller which saw her recognised on the TIME100 AI List - Hao explores OpenAI's meteoric rise and its human, material and environmental impact. With its seemingly relentless extraction of resources, labour and land largely from the Global South, Hao likens the industry to colonial empires of old.

62. Empire of AI

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. For academic Luke Kemp, our civilisation is exceptionally fragile. Collapse isn't inevitable, but we need radical change to prevent it - and history shows a cautionary pattern. Surveying 5000 years of human history, and over 400 civilisation collapses from the Bronze Age to modern times, Kemp highlights a recurring trend: elites unsustainably seize and concentrate resources; inequality grows to destabilising levels and destroys said society.

57. Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. A selection of writers line up to share an unexpected topic - however niche, quirky or downright odd - that led them down the proverbial rabbit hole, and ended up being significant to their work

49. Down the Rabbithole...

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. How do you rebuild a 400-year-old topical joke in a new culture and with none of the same words? How does Romeo and Juliet's first meeting unfold if they can't mention pilgrims? Why are Lady Macbeth's pronouns such a problem? Seasoned translator and Shakespeare fanatic Daniel Hahn has travelled the globe to uncover how Shakespeare has moved between languages, and the pleasures, challenges and oddities each new translation brings.

58. If This Be Magic: Shakespeare in Translation

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Japanese Mieko Kawakami's Breasts and Eggs won Japan's leading literary prize, was recognised as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME's Best 10 Books of 2020. Her second novel to appear in English, Heaven was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022 and her third, All the Lovers in the Night appeared on the US' National Book Critics Award shortlist. She is in conversation on her new novel, Sisters in Yellow.

47. Mieko Kawakami

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Roddy Doyle is one of Ireland's most beloved writers. From his breakthrough novel The Commitments, to his Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, his work has captured the rhythms and voices of working class Dublin. As Chair of the Booker Prize Judges in 2025, he read more than 150 books alongside his four fellow judges. Doyle discusses his literary career and his unique year immersed in the books of others, and what he's working on now.

91. Roddy Doyle

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Ukrainian-Canadian author Maria Reva's 2025 Booker Prize-longlisted Endling blends the plight of an endangered snail, women in the Ukrainian romance tourism industry, and civilian lives in Ukraine and beyond during war - all told with urgency and humour. In conversation with Jenna Todd (Kai Tahu) she discusses her novel that has received international praise, and been championed enthusiastically by many Auckland booksellers.

69. Maria Reva

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In this masterclass, award-winning memoirist and long-form podcast maker Noelle McCarthy considers the crucial judgement at the heart of first-person creative writing: how much of your life and the people in it, can and should you include? How best to incorporate these perspectives and navigate all the contradictions, gaps and questions that subjective rememberings bring?

66. Noelle McCarthy: Shaping Your Story, Adding Voices to Your Own

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In his Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted book Polkinghorne Steve Braunias takes readers on a journey through one of the most high-profile murder case in modern Aotearoa. The death of Pauline Hanna in her home in Remuera, and the arrest of her eye surgeon husband, Dr Philip Polkinghorne, led to an epic trial. Braunias provides a unique insight into the investigation and trial, and the ethics of researching and writing true crime. Chaired by Lady Deborah Chambers KC.

68. Polkinghorne: Inside the Trial of the Century

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Amitav Ghosh is one of India's most decorated writers. A genre-defying novelist, a major post-colonial thinker and one of literature's most influential voices on climate change, his work has earned him India's highest literary honour, two lifetime achievement awards and named by Foreign Policy as one of the decade's most important global thinkers. He introduces Ghost-Eye, his new novel exploring memory, reincarnation and our planet's fragility.

77. Amitav Ghosh

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. R.F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Yellowface, Babel and the Poppy War trilogy ; has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford and British Book Awards; and been recognised on the Time '100 Next' and Forbes '30 Under 30' lists. Join her in conversation about her most recent novel Katabasis, a dark academia blockbuster of two Cambridge rivals who make the ultimate journey to protect their careers: to hell.

72. R. F. Kuang

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. The Chief and the Empire by Eugene Bingham (Pakeha, Ngapuhi) uncovers the extraordinary true tale of Te Tai Tokerau rangatira Te Pahi - the first influential M?ori leader to cross the Tasman - whose curiosity about the Pakeha world forged alliances, saved lives, and ultimately cost him his own. Part history, part true-crime investigation, it is a riveting account of Te Pahi's journey and early M?ori-Pakeha encounters.

70. The Chief and The Empire

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Yellowface by R. F. Kuang and Fruit Fly by Josh Silver both pose powerful questions about who gets to tell the story, who profits from it, and the dark consequences of ambition and greed in the world of publishing. They discuss their sharp, propulsive novels that expose tokenism, exploitation and the fraught ethics of telling another's story.

84. Who Gets to Tell the Story?

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Tarot is used to predict the future but what if it could also unlock creativity? Claire Mabey (The Raven's Eye Rebellion) presents a practical guide to using tarot as a creative tool, exploring archetypal characters and how the cards can help break through artistic block. No tarot experience is required, but if you have a deck of your own, feel free to bring it along.

109. Cards on the Table: Tarot and Writing

Vault Q Theatre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In The Mushroom Tapes, Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein - three renowned writers of true crime - turn their attentions to the trial of Erin Patterson, the woman dubbed "the mushroom lady" after three guests died from death-cap poisoning at a family lunch. Told through their intimate conversations - phone calls, car rides and the strange rhythms of court days - their account draws the readers close to the case's surreal details, and balances scepticism and fascination to document and dissect the riveting case.

128. The Mushroom Tapes

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. From her National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel, Love Medicine, her National Book Award-winning The Round House to her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich is one of America's most highly regarded writers. Her works have brought the Native American experience to the centre of cultural and literary discourse. She discusses her career and latest novel The Mighty Red and short story collection, The Python's Kiss.

127. Louise Erdrich

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami (Sisters in Yellow, Heaven, Breasts and Eggs), Korean author Bora Chung (The Midnight Timetable, Your Utopia, Cursed Bunny) and local literary star Laura Borrowdale (Dead Ends, Sex, with Animals and the Angry Ladies podcast) discuss using the darkly imaginative, the speculative or the surreal to capture the modern realities of life for women and how they respond to the 'weird girl lit' label.

116. Weird Girl Lit

Rangatira, Q Theatre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Pacific writing is often framed through crisis, resistance and identity politics. This session asks what becomes possible when desire is placed at the centre instead. Join Ruby Macomber in conversation with fellow Tangata Moana w?hine writers Tusiata Avia (Giving Birth to My Father), Amber Esau (Hungus), and Danielle Kionasina Dilys Thomson (Moana: Voices of Our Ocean) as they explore the desires that shape their work and their lives.

111. Dreaming for the Ocean In Us: Tangata Moana writers and Desire

Loft Theatre

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Head down to hell with three dynamic writers who uncover the underworld in their vivid reimaginings: internationally best-selling author of Yellowface, Babel and Katabasis R. F. Kuang; the #1 New York Times best-selling creator of the #1 WEBTOON phenomenon Lore Olympus Rachel Smythe; and Irish-Indian poet Nikita Gill, one of the most followed poets on Instagram and author of her new novel in verse Hekate.

113. To Hell and Back

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. How does disconnection from whenua, te taiao and food systems shape contemporary crises? Conservationist Tame Malcolm (Te Arawa, Ngati Ruanui), maramataka practitioner Rikki Solomon (Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Kahu ki Whangaroa) and author of Pataka Kai: Growing Kai Sovereignty Jessica Hutchings (Ngai Tahu, Ngati Huirapa, Gujarati) explore our relationship with te taiao and the impacts of its disruption. Mandy Kupenga (Ngati Porou, Te Aitanga a Mate).

134. Ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au I am the land, and the land

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. A Different Kind of Power, Jacinda Ardern's memoir of her time as Aotearoa New Zealand's youngest female leader spans a remarkable personal journey and an unprecedented few years in the country's history. She sits down with Noelle McCarthy to discuss her manifesto for empathy-driven leadership, her path and to reflect on the lessons she hopes can empower us all to create a more hopeful future.

140. Rt Hon Dame Jacinda Ardern: A Different Kind of Power

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. The 2025 Booker Prize winning Hungarian-British author David Szalay is in conversation with Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize Chair of judges, about his lauded book Flesh, and his reflections six months on from winning the life-changing prize. Doyle remarked "[w]e had never read anything quite like it" and described it as an "extraordinary, singular novel". The novel asks profound questions about what makes a life worth living - and what breaks it.

136. The 2025 Booker Prize Winner: David Szalay

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In this dynamic theatrical lecture, celebrated artist Jo Randerson explores the secret powers artists use daily and shares six creative mindsets that help us navigate our complex and changing times. Joyful, generous, affirming, nourishing and timely, it's the perfect way to harness all the creativity you've experienced at the Festival, and think about how to employ lessons from artists to create positive, lasting change in your life or work.

135. Secret Art Powers: Achieving Change Through Creative Thinking

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. In her esteemed career - latterly as the BBC's Chief International Correspondent - Lyse Doucet has brought news from the world's conflict zones, and the human stories within them, to millions. She reflects on an extraordinary career in the world's geopolitical hotspots, and the remarkable Kabul hotel that helped her tell the story of a nation and its people in The Finest Hotel in Kabul, the story of Afghanistan's first luxury hotel.

132. Lyse Doucet

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. We all have points in our lives where a seemingly small moment, event or decision forked our path and led our life down a whole other route. Meet three writers whose compelling and bestselling novels explore this in fascinating ways: Lily King (Heart the Lover), Florence Knapp (The Names) and Josie Shapiro (Good Things Come and Go). They discuss the small moments in life that become the big, and the allure of imagining the paths not taken.

133. Sliding Doors

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. Spanning Muldoon to Luxon, Barry Soper has spent the best part of five decades reporting from New Zealand's corridors of power. In One Last Question, Prime Minister, he traces covering the 12 prime ministers of his working life and reveals the inside scoop from the halls, hotels and side-rooms where the country's chosen leaders - for better or worse - created their lasting legacy.

130. Barry Soper: One Last Question, Prime Minister

All Tickets are Mobile Ticket Only. Mobile Tickets are like Print-at-Home tickets but instead of having to print off the tickets yourself, you can just show the barcode on your mobile phone. It is the easiest way to access tickets to your events. For more information visit Ticketmaster.co.nz/mobileticket Child Policy: Children aged under 1 will be permitted free. Provided they do not occupy a seat. When Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia more than two decades ago, he changed the landscape of knowledge and how we access it. But in our "post-truth" era, where the internet is a sea of disinformation, for Wales it's important to return to the problem at the heart of it all: that without trust, we have no knowledge. And without knowledge, we can't fight back. He shares his clear, actionable rules for building trust in business, leadership and life.

Auckland Writers Festival

May 12, 2026

3. Patrick Radden Keefe

May 13, 2026

4. Lunch with Patrick Radden Keefe

May 14, 2026

14. The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction 2026 Winner

May 14, 2026

6. Festival Gala Night: Resetting the Compass

May 14, 2026

21. Discovering Medieval Manuscripts in Aotearoa New Zealand

Auckland Writers Festival