Author Interview

We need resilience to bounce back from big setbacks but also to deal with everyday stress and raising a family, so how do we get more if it? Psychologist and best-selling author Rick Hanson has some… Video, Audio

You haven't earned your truckie stripes until you've watched a big vehicle run away from you, says former truck driver Randolph Covich, author of Life on the Road: Kiwi Trucking Stories. Audio

There probably isn't another creature on the planet more taken for granted than the humble bee. For every third bite of food you eat, you can thank a bee. Bees visit about 75% of the most popular and… Audio

Madeleine Chapman is a staff writer at The Spinoff. She previously represented Samoa in their national cricket team and was the New Zealand javelin champion in 2013 and 2017. Most recently, Chapman… Audio

NZ writer Kirsty Gunn describes her new novel, Caroline's Bikini, as a comedy about the telling of a love story. Gunn's first novel, Rain, was published in 1994, and was made into a successful feature… Audio

Mike Rolls was a sports mad teenager in Australia when he contracted meningococcal septicaemia on a football trip aged 18. Overnight he was fighting for his life. He defied doctors' expectations and… Audio

Workplace agony aunt Alison Green hands out advice about everything from working with your best friend to how to alert a co-worker that deodorant is a good thing. Audio

The centenary of the birth of one of the world's most loved and highly regarded human rights leaders was marked by the only authorized collection of Nelson Mandela's correspondence during the… Audio

Kathryn meets Dr Micheline Jenner who has spent three decades studying whales off the coast of Western Australia. She is the co-founder of the Centre for Whale Research and has recently published a… Audio, Gallery

Edinburgh-born Irvine Welsh was "energised by the rave scene" when he started writing Trainspotting, and says his latest book looking at middle-aged male friendship shows the breakdown of old… Audio

Her beauty and glamour bewitched legions of admirers, while her acerbic tongue made her notoriously rude. One of Britain's best satirical writers, Craig Brown talks to Kathryn Ryan about taking on the… Audio

The qualities that make a good scientist, attention to details, slave to facts, willingness to work with white mice in windowless rooms, often make them the worst people to explain science, Dr Paul… Audio

In a world in which almost everything is connected, our society is more target rich for hackers than ever before. It's not surprising, then, that cyber threats now pose a bigger danger to world… Audio

Isa Pearl Ritchie writes about a family in crisis in her novel, Fishing for Maui, drawing on her own experiences as a young person who's struggled with depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue. Audio

David Brown was the ultimate traveller. His outlook was shaped by the places many of us wouldn't dare to visit. From Belarus to Rwanda, Damascus to Transnistria and the Syrian city of Palmyra before… Audio, Gallery

Anna Cahill is a Auckland-born writer based in Brisbane. She has just published a biography of one of New Zealand's most well-known expatriate artists, Douglas Kerr MacDiarmid, called Colours of a… Audio

Carolin Emcke is a German author and journalist who studied philosophy and history in London, Frankfurt and at Harvard University. From 1998 to 2013 she reported from war and crisis zones including… Audio

Al Lester is a larger-than-life former detective sergeant who retired from the police two years ago after 31 years on the force. His book, Straight From The Pig's Mouth, tells the stories of those… Audio

Robin Burcell was a police officer in California for almost 30 years. After she retired from the force, she focused on her writing career and then came a call up of a different kind. She received an… Audio

Mathew Klickstein joins me to talk about his behind the scenes book Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies From a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons. Audio