Ciarán Fox: WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival

WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival is a mere few weeks away – it kicks off on 27 August. We’ve asked three quick questions of festival guests:

Ciarán Fox – co-editor of Catalyst

What (or who) are you most looking forward to at WORD Christchurch?

It’s going to be hard to choose between so many fantastic events – I think I need to clone myself. This is definitely shaping up as the best Writers Festival ever. I think I’m most excited about all the poetry in this years festival particularly slam poet Anis Mojgani. But if pushed I have to say the two must-see poetry events will be the Catalyst Road Show on Saturday 30 August 9pm at the Darkroom – some of the best local performance poets paired with live music. And of course there is the absolutely unique live poetry event Survivor Poetry that closes the festival – a one of a kind mash up of performance, writing and reality TV invented right here in Christchurch.  I guarantee you have never seen poetry done like this before

What do you think about libraries?

I’m pretty passionate about libraries and I love how everyone that works at Christchurch City Libraries seems to feel that way too.  Libraries are such an important part of our communities and personally I don’t know what I’d do without them. I think of how much I appreciated the libraries that were able to open soon after the earthquakes and what a lifeline of sanity they were. Oh and I love reading as much as life itself. My favourite things to do in the library are hunting through the music sections and looking for obscure graphic novels.

Share a surprising fact about yourself.

I’m sorry I have no idea what to say for this one, sorry!  Oh maybe that I’ve never won a competition in my entire life. Not a thing, apart from sport or quizzes. Or maybe that I can say the alphabet backwards as fast as I can forwards. Or that both my parents were dancers.  Or that I’m actually very good at table tennis. Or that when I was a kid I wanted to be a Formula 1 driver or a nature documentary film maker.

• Ciarán Fox appears at WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival  in:
  The Catalyst Roadshow: Saturday 30 August, 9pm
  Survivor Poetry: Sunday 31 August, 6pm
• Read more Festival guest picks and WORD Christchurch posts.

Science fiction for August

Here’s a selection of the titles from our August science fiction newsletter. All of them have four+ stars in our catalogue so take your pick.

You can read the whole thing online and subscribe if you want to get it emailed to you every other month.

Max Rashbrooke: WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival

WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival is a mere few weeks away – it kicks off on 27 August. We’ve asked three quick questions of festival guests:

Max Rashbrooke – editor and co-author of Inequality: A New Zealand crisis

What (or who) are you most looking forward to at WORD Christchurch?

Luke Harding – His journalism is exceptionally good, and inspiringly brave

What do you think about libraries?

I love libraries. My mother is a librarian and we spent a lot of time in them as kids. I hope they’re with us to stay, even if in a slightly different form to that which they have now

Share a surprising fact about yourself.

I can recite, from memory, all 180 lines of Edmund Spenser’s largely forgotten 16th century poem Prothalamion.

• Max Rashbrooke appears at WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival in Tipping the Scales: Inequality and Child Poverty in New Zealand Friday 29 August, 4pm
• Search our catalogue for books by Max
• Read more Festival guest picks and WORD Christchurch posts.

Maire Leadbeater: WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival

WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival is a mere few weeks away – it kicks off on 27 August. We’ve asked three quick questions of festival guests:

Maire Leadbeater – long-time human rights and peace activist and writer

What (or who) are you most looking forward to at WORD Christchurch?

I am really looking forward to meeting Luke Harding, author of The Snowden files. I think Snowden is a fascinating character, and a man of remarkable integrity and courage. We all need to understand the Five Eyes surveillance network and its limitless capacity to spy on institutions, governments and individuals.

What do you think about libraries?

I love libraries, especially their wonderful research facilities where I happily spend hours and days devouring unpublished manuscript material, letters and documents. Without such material I could not have written Peace, Power and Politics: how New Zealand became Nuclear Free.

Share a surprising fact about yourself.

I enjoy ice skating.  I learnt as a teenager in Christchurch and can still skate, upright if not elegantly, well into my 60s!

• Maire Leadbeater appears at WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival in People Power: Friday 29 August, 10am
• Search our catalogue for books by Maire
• Read more Festival guest picks and WORD Christchurch posts.

“For Later” lately (2)

In an attempt to tame her ever-growing For Later list,  Robyn has decided to share with us on a regular basis the titles that she has recently added to her list. The theory being that, even if she doesn’t ever get round to reading them, she can perhaps do so vicariously through you… So please do share your opinions of her picks – are they worthy, do you think, of inclusion in that lofty list?

What I put on my For Later list this week:
Adam by Ariel Schrag because I love Schrag with a burning passion and her High School Chronicles are some of the best graphic novels ever.

Knit your own pet by Sally Muir because I am an eternal optimist and it is for absolute beginners.

British folk art by Ruth Kenny because it’s good to see art made outside the mainstream.

Ideas: texture and Ideas: open spaces by Fernando de Haro because idly flicking through books featuring lovely ideas without having to put them into practice is one of life’s great pleasures. See also Living Mexico City by Marcela y Aguilary Maya.  Also because she has the best name.

Dabbous, the cookbook by Ollie Dabbous because My Kitchen Rules every night has led to an obsession with food. Not cooking it or even eating it,  just sort of observing it. Cooking definitely not an option as this book features recipes such as ‘Mixed Alliums in a Chilled Pine Infusion’.

The art of Neil Gaiman by Hayley Campbell because he is a legend, pure and simple.