News
Expect the mysterious and the morbid, as well insights into memoir writing, at the 2023 Queenstown Writers Festival. For our 2023 programme we’ve brought together acclaimed writers from across Aotearoa New Zealand to discuss bold ideas and their latest books, on the weekend of November 11 to 12 at Te Atamira in Frankton. Dame Gaylene Preston […]
As you may already know, Queenstown Writers Festival is meant to be a biennial event, but despite our best intentions we’ve decided to put on a mini-festival for 2023! After the hugely successful 2022 festival we have been blown away by the interest and enthusiasm from locals, writers and visitors to be part of our […]
Rebecca K Reilly’s novel Greta and Valdin has dominated the bestseller lists, won over the judges at the Ockham NZ Book Awards and captured a new generation of readers with its smart, fresh and funny take on modern life and relationships. Among the young audience is Eoin McGlynn, a Year 12 student at Wakatipu High […]
Kevin Chapman is known for having a nose for a good story. He has worked in publishing for over 30 years in New Zealand, the UK, Canada, the US and Australia. Before starting Upstart Press he was managing director of Hachette NZ and Anne Geddes Publishing. Kevin will be joining us at QWF this year […]
Noelle McCarthy’s astonishing début memoir Grand, about mothers and daughters, drinking, birth and loss, running away and homecoming, became an instant best seller when it hit the shelves earlier this year. Meg Mason described it as “Derry Girls meets An Angel at My Table” and found it “Desperately funny, hysterically sad, so beautiful and so […]
In 2021 Bethany G. Rogers, one of Queenstown Writers Festival’s founding trustees, was awarded a prestigious New Zealand Society of Authors mentorship for emerging writers. Out of that programme grew Kaleidoscopes in the Dark, a blackly humorous short-story collection filled with remnants of fairytales and gothic themes. Published under the pen name B. G. Rogers, […]
Christine Leunens is the author of Primordial Soup, described by the Sunday Times as ‘a remarkable debut novel’; A Can of Sunshine, selected as one of the Best Books of the Year 2013 by the New Zealand Herald; and Caging Skies, the Prix Médicis-nominated book adapted into the Academy Award-winning movie Jojo Rabbit, directed by Taika Waititi. Her latest novel In Amber’s Wake is set in New […]
In late 2020, Liz Breslin, Annabel Wilson and Laura Williamson embarked on a “spoke’n’word tour” of the Otago Central Rail Trail. The three poets packed amps, mics and notebooks into trailers and e-biked the length of the Rail Trail to perform at historic halls in five locations along the way: Clyde, Ophir, Oturehua, Ranfurly and […]
How do we safely navigate a world flooded with false information? What is fake news and misinformation and how do we avoid being fooled by the internet? Investigative journalist Stephen Davis will offer answers at a special two-hour workshop at Queenstown Writers Festival. He’ll provide guidelines on getting good information, reliable sources and understanding political […]
Most people in Queenstown know – or at the very least know of – Alexa Forbes, who is joining Queenstown Writers Festival this year as one of our interviewers. We couldn’t think of anyone more perfect to talk to sustainability communicator Kate Hall, otherwise known as Ethically Kate, about her new book Better, Bolder, Different. Alexa’s varied […]