SOMETHING THAT MAY SHOCK AND DISCREDIT YOU: DANIEL LAVERY (2023)

SOMETHING THAT MAY SHOCK AND DISCREDIT YOU: DANIEL LAVERY (2023)

Author: Auckland Writers Festival November 29, 2023 Duration: 1:01:01
Delightfully inventive and witty, Daniel Lavery (as Mallory Ortberg) was the cofounder of The Toast, the pop-culture platform with literary depth that described its target audience as ‘librarians’. The best-selling author of Texts from Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, next wrote Something that May Shock and Discredit You, an exhilarating series of essays combining personal revelations with cultural deepdives. With chapter introductions such as ‘When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened Without You? I Did’, Lavery hilariously toggles between his transition, his religious upbringing, and the evolving relationship with the women in his life, while riffing on the Golden Girls, Lord Byron, Rilke, Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, and the cast of Mean Girls. He chats with Claire Mabey. FRI, 19 MAY 2023, 4:00pm – 5:00pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.

The Auckland Writers Festival podcast is a direct line to the stages and conversations of one of the Southern Hemisphere's most vibrant literary events. This audio archive captures the live, unscripted energy of festival sessions, bringing the voices of the world's most compelling authors, thinkers, and poets directly to you. Each episode is a deep dive into the ideas shaping our world, from intimate interviews on the craft of writing to expansive panel discussions on history, politics, science, and culture. You'll hear novelists dissect their characters, historians trace forgotten narratives, and poets articulate the ineffable, all within the unique atmosphere of a live audience. This isn't a produced studio show; it's the sound of intellectual discovery and passionate debate happening in real time. The collection serves as a lasting resource, preserving the festival's dynamic spirit long after the final applause. For anyone who believes in the power of stories to challenge and connect us, this podcast offers a front-row seat to a celebration of words and the people who wield them with extraordinary skill. Tune in to be reminded of why literature matters.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Auckland Writers Festival
Podcast Episodes
CALLIE HART INTERVIEW [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:28
CALLIE HART INTERVIEW by Auckland Writers Festival
THE MORALITY OF AI: TOBY WALSH (2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:37
There are approximately three million robots working in factories around the world, and another 30 million in people’s homes. Soon robots will outnumber humans. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a perso…
WORDS LOST AND FOUND: PIP WILLIAMS (2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:41
Pip Williams’ best-selling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words tells the story of motherless Esme who spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers gather w…
THE SEVEN MOONS OF MAALI ALMEIDA: SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA (2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:28
The judges for the winning 2022 Booker Prize praised Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida for the ‘ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques’. Set in Sri Lanka…
THE BOOK OF ROADS AND KINGDOMS: RICHARD FIDLER (2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:01
The Book of Roads and Kingdoms brings to life a dazzling culture of science, literature, philosophy and adventure arising out of the flourishing metropolis of Baghdad during Islam’s Golden Age. Australian writer / broadc…
INDELIBLE CITY: LOUISA LIM (2023) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:53
In the opening paragraphs of Stella Prize shortlisted Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, author Louisa Lim is torn between journalistic neutrality and her love of Hong Kong as she is invited by guer…
It's Not About Hope: CHELSEA WATEGO, EMMA ESPINER [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:53
In Another Day in the Colony, Mununjali and South Sea Islander health activist Chelsea Watego has a chapter called F**k Hope. She urges her mob to be nihilistic because hope is the dream deferred, better to embrace sover…