From left, Elizabeth Knox, Nicky Pellegrino, Harry Ricketts and Stacy GreGG are among the line-up of writers attending the inaugural Ruapehu Writers Festival. Pictures / Dean Purcell, NZME
Some of the country's best-known authors, poets and book editors will converge on Ohakune from March 17-20 for the first Ruapehu Writers Festival.
Billed as a long weekend of readings, talks, and panel discussions, the festival also offers a fiction-writing workshop, a poetry slam and some more unusual events such
as a literary waterfall walk, a bike ride and a pony trek.
Emily Perkins, Fiona Kidman, Fiona Farrell, James Brown, Bianca Zander, Nick Ascroft, Harry Ricketts and Nicky Pellegrino are among the authors who will discuss and read their work and talk about their influences and aspects of their work. Elizabeth Knox will give the Festival Lecture while Sue Orr takes a workshop in writing fiction. Stacy Gregg will talk about the importance of setting (as part of a literary discussion with Orr and Bianca Zander) and will also lead the pony trek for younger fans of her best-selling pony stories.
Students from Ruapehu College and Taumarunui High School will be involved and many local authors are included in the programme.
Victoria University's Associate Professor, and 2016 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow, Dr Anna Jackson of the School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies, is organising the festival alongside her husband and Tuatua Cafe owner Simon Edmonds, and poet and publisher Helen Rickerby.
