Who’s coming to The Press Christchurch Writers Festival?

A media release from Booksellers New Zealand has announced: Writers confirmed for The Press Christchurch Writers Festival 9-12 September 2010. The 2010 Festival features:

• The presentation of the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel
• International writers including Simon Winchester, Barbara Trapido, Clive Hamilton and Emily Maguire
• A bevy of Kiwi writers, poets and performers including Dave Dobbyn, Roger Hall, Rachael King, Chris Laidlaw and Helen Lowe.

I’m waving my fan flag for the wonderful Simon Winchester. I’ve loved his work ever since reading The Surgeon of Crowthorne, a bewitching story of murder, madness and logomania:

W.C. Minor was one of the keenest volunteers involved in the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. What the OED’s editor, James Murray, didn’t realise was that he was also a millionaire American Civil War surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder.

His latest book is all about the Atlantic.

Bookings for all events open tomorrow (Friday 16 July) with the release of the programme.

• The Press Christchurch Writers Festival website
• Our coverage of the 2008 Festival – on the website and here on the blog.

Craig Smith and the Wonky Donkey

Is Craig Smith  of Wonky Donkey fame more popular than The Wiggles? He just might be, given the crowds of kids and parents in Christchurch’s Central Library currently enjoying a performance.

• Photos on Flickr

Returned servicemen – Image of the week

The Canterbury AA’s fleet of motor cars at the Christchurch Railway Station to convey some of the returned servicemen. 18 November 1919.

Do you have photos of Christchurch? We love donations.

Also contact us if you have any further information on any of the images. Want to see more? You can browse our collection.

The ghosts of cinema past

Everybody’s Theatre (pictured) was proposed to be built on Lichfield Street the 1930s, and I’m thinking it might have been quite flash for a night out.

The image is from of our collection of  digitised plans of Christchurch buildings, where you’ll also find the original floor plan of the Majestic Theatre. I read recently that the Majestic building will be refurbished again, and I started thinking about the disappeared theatres in Christchurch.

From the tiny Savoy 1 & 2 (where I saw everything from Star Wars and  2001 : A Space Odyssey to Arnie movies and the eye-popping Evil Dead 2)  to the West End (Stripes), or the Avon (Goodbye Pork Pie, I think), there’s several theatres that have disappeared over the years.

Which Christchurch theatres do you remember? And which movies did you see at them?