News
In the tender, beautifully told The 10pm Question, anxious 12-year-old Frankie Parsons has a drumbeat of questions steadily gaining volume in his head. Are the smoke alarm batteries flat? Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family, have worms? Is the kidney-shaped spot on his chest a galloping cancer? And then there is the […]
Dunedin writer Paddy Richardson enthralled the audience at QWF 2020 when she spoke about crime writing, so we’re absolutely delighted Paddy is returning to the festival in 2022 to speak about another of her passions, historical fiction. Paddy will talk with Arrowtown writer and educator Sue Luus about her latest novel, a work described by […]
We’re delighted to announce Queenstown Writers Festival’s first official charity partner, Kiwi Christmas Books. We can think of no better way to share our love of story telling and the joy of reading than to get more books into the hands of young New Zealanders. Kiwi Christmas Books provides brand-new books to families who can’t […]
If your life smacks of boredom and sameness filled with ordinary people, you need to read Eddy, Eddy. I wanted to invite these characters to a dinner party and, although this in itself would be entertaining, adding the animals featured in the story to the guest list would guarantee comic relief. So entirely did the […]
We’re coming towards the end of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, the annual celebration of Māori language. This year is particularly special as it marks 50 years since the Māori Language Petition, calling for the active recognition and teaching of te reo Māori in schools, was presented to Parliament by 22-year-old Hana Te Hemara. The […]
Multi-award-winning author and national treasure Catherine Chidgey will launch her newest novel The Axeman’s Carnival at this year’s Queenstown Writers Festival. Catherine delighted audiences last year when she appeared via Zoom due to Covid-19 restrictions. She confided that her new novel would be set deep in Central Otago and we immediately invited her back for […]
We’re thrilled to be bringing two authors judged among New Zealand’s best in this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards to Queenstown for our 2022 festival. Wellington writer Whiti Hereaka won the supreme prize for fiction for her epic retelling of Māori mythology Kurangaituku and Rebecca K Reilly won the prize for best first book of […]
We’re thrilled to announce our first event of 2022, when Southland legend Ruth Shaw shares her extraordinary story and talks about her new book. Ruth has as many bookshops on her Manapouri property as can be found in all of Queenstown. She started with one “because it gives me an excuse to go out and […]
Queenstown Writers Festival got off to a flying start yesterday with an inspiring short story workshop led via Zoom by acclaimed New Zealand novelist Catherine Chidgey. This was followed by the launch of talented children’s writer and illustrator Laura Shallcrass’s latest book, What Colour Is the Sky? Our festival may be known as the Queenstown Writers […]