Auckland Writers Festival » Podcasts

Language: English Episodes: 28
Dive into the vibrant literary world captured by the Auckland Writers Festival » Podcasts. This series offers a front-row seat to the conversations, readings, and ideas that define one of the Southern Hemisphere's most significant literary events. Each episode transports you directly into the festival's halls, where you'll hear authors, poets, and thinkers engage in deep, often surprising discussions about their work and the forces shaping our world. The recordings preserve the unique energy of a live audience, the spontaneity of a question from the crowd, and the nuanced exchange between interviewer and guest. It’s more than just an archive; it’s an ongoing invitation to experience the festival's intellectual curiosity and creative spirit long after the final applause. Tuning into this podcast means accessing a rich library of contemporary thought, from emerging local voices to internationally acclaimed literary figures, all united by the power of storytelling and rigorous ideas. Whether you're revisiting a favorite session or discovering a new writer, these episodes provide a lasting connection to the arts and the compelling dialogues that the Auckland Writers Festival fosters each year.
Episodes
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One of the world’s leading investigative journalists, Nick Davies broke the phone hacking story in the UK, worked with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange to publish classified material in the Guardian and has recently authored th…
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C.K. Stead is one of New Zealand’s foremost literary figures. A distinguished novelist, literary critic, poet, essayist and Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland, Stead has won many awards and fello…
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An irreverent and stinging session should be forthcoming as Steve Braunias, author of Mad Men, and David Slack, Metro contributor, gather with writer and editor Stephen Stratford to discuss satirical writing.
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English comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes would rather we not see “Ancient Rome as a toga party to which our invitation went astray.” An Ancient Guide to the Modern Life is her manifesto for the relevance of classic…
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Former Wallaby lock, newspaper columnist, broadcaster and author Peter FitzSimons joins us from Sydney to talk about his latest bookGallipoli, alongside other work including his biographies of the Second World War Two sp…
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Not long ago Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri caused a stir, writing in the Guardian that black and African writers should “not be expected to write about slavery, poverty or racial injustice. The greatest literature…
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Atul Gawande writes profoundly about medicine. He’s a surgeon, author, researcher (with a particular interest in patient safety and care) and staff writer for The New Yorker. Being Mortal is his fourth book, and in it he…
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English historian, poet, naturalist and illustrator Helen Macdonald once bred hawks for Arab sheikhs. She is also the winner of the Costa Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for H is for Hawk, a chronicle…
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Anthony Horowitz mines the world of spooks and gumshoes to craft great books. Creator of The Diamond Brothers, Alex Rider and The Power of Five (aka The Gatekeepers) series for younger readers, and the author of Conan Do…
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“Our most irresistible literary critic,” says The New York Times Book Review. Daniel Mendelsohn is an elegant stylistic polymath – a reviewer but also an essayist, memoirist, classicial scholar and translator of the Gree…