AUTHOR: Graeme Simsion is part of this year's writers' and readers' programme for the Tauranga Arts Festival. PHOTO/JAMES PENLIDIS
AUTHOR: Graeme Simsion is part of this year's writers' and readers' programme for the Tauranga Arts Festival. PHOTO/JAMES PENLIDIS
Authors and writers are taking centre stage in this year's Tauranga Arts Festival.
Organisers said the event had been a success and expected that to continue until the festival finished on Sunday.
Festival spokeswoman Claire Mabey said even though the festival was coming to an end there still were stunningperformances to come, as well as the largest writers' and readers' programme presented by the festival.
The writers' and readers' programme kicked off yesterday. A new event, The Book Club, was also held. It featured a line-up of writers in an intimate evening with just 45 audience members.
Graeme Simsion, Julie Thomas, Paul Moon, Tanya Moir, Elizabeth Knox, Fergus Barrowman and Lynn Freeman spoke about their own reading list and secret word-related habits.
Today will also see the launch of Elizabeth Knox's new work, Wake, a novel about what it means to try to do your best.
"It seems very fitting that I should launch Wake at the Tauranga festival," Knox said. "Tauranga is lovely, sunny and hospitable - as is [the] fictional settlement of Kahukura, a place inhabited by people just like us, where what is day-lit, familiar and homely has to hold out against fearful threats, in a story about the bad things that happen, and the good people do."
