Author Interview

Covid-19 has ravaged many industries, but romance novel sales have been soaring through the lockdown period, including titles from Te-Puke based mother of four Joanne Wadsworth. Audio

British journalist, author and music lover Pete Paphides' new book "Broken Greek" is a memoir of his childhood and the important role music played in it. Paphides' parents arrived broke in Birmingham… Audio

Bestselling author Lionel Shriver doesn't write stories about noble characters who breeze through adversity without breaking a sweat and her readers thank her for it. Audio

Wainuiomata's Dahlia Malaeulu is a teacher, an advocate for Samoa and Pasifika education and also an author. She has written series of children's books Mila's My Gagana and now a new e-book Teine… Audio

Best selling American author Curtis Sittenfeld's latest novel has a simple but fascinating premise: What if Hillary Clinton hadn't married Bill? Audio

Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef talks with Carl Shuker about risk, mistakes and how heart surgery has changed in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme. Audio

Fiction writer, critic, essayist, art curator and former NZ Poet Laureate, Ian Wedde has a new book out. The Reed Warbler is his eighth novel and is being billed as a masterpiece. A work of fiction… Audio

High Wire is the work of writer, Lloyd Jones and artist, Euan Macleod. It is the first in a series of picture books written for and made for adults. High Wire is told by a narrator who walks to… Audio, Gallery

Alan Zweibel was a writer in the early days of Saturday Night Live, It's Garry Shandling's Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. He details a life in comedy in his new memoir, Laugh Lines: My Life Helping… Audio

Sommelier Grant Reynolds is on a mission to make the world of wine relatable. Audio

Working for more than 30 years in magazines, Jenny Lynch spent 18 years at the NZ Woman's Weekly, including seven as the editor. She is the author of three non-fiction books and now her memoir Under… Audio

Kristen Ghodsee and Marilyn Waring talk to Kathryn Ryan about the fight for valuing women's economic contribution to society - at the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme. Audio

Many have revelled in a return to a simpler life due to Covid-19. Professor Emrys Westacott, who wrote The Wisdom of Frugality, says this is a time to reflect on whether the type of society we had… Audio

Julia Ebner says creating identities to go undercover and infiltrate extreme groups was like creating characters for a novel. But it didn't always go to plan. She discusses her new book Going Dark,… Audio

At the same time as the Covid-19 pandemic began sweeping the world Australian moral philosopher Toby Ord released his book calculating the possibility of the end of humanity. In The Precipice he… Audio

New Zealand actor and novelist Barbara Ewing has written a memoir about life as a young woman in Wellington and Auckland in the 1950s and early 1960s, before she headed off to study in London. One… Audio

Shaun Bythell lives in Wigtown, Scotland, where he runs The Bookshop - the largest second hand bookshop in Scotland. Its shelves span nearly 2 kilometres and contain over 100,000 books, Shaun has… Audio

In his latest book, 'The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West', modern warfare expert, David Kilcullen has put forward a theory of how state threats, (like Russia and China)… Audio

Before the pandemic, antibiotic resistant bacteria is what kept many global health officials up at night. Superbugs have not gone away, they are still out there figuring out ways to defeat whatever… Audio