Novelist uncovers new 'horror' tale at festival

NEW CHAPTER: Writer Elizabeth Knox will preview her new novel at Kokomai Creative Festival this month.PHOTO/GRANT MAIDEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Wellington-based writer Elizabeth Knox will deliver a preview of her new novel during this month's Kokomai Creative Festival Wairarapa.

Knox, author of The Vintner's Luck and more recently young adult novel Mortal Fire, will speak about her new novel Wake, at Writers in the Vines at Gladstone Vineyard on Saturday, October 19.

Knox says Wake is a horror novel and the motivation for the story followed a series of terrible events that befell both her and her husband's families.

"The novel was my way of talking back to my feelings about catastrophe," said Knox.

"Later it became a place where I got to tell a story about how people get on with their lives and with one another when facing dreadful things.

"Because I knew I was writing a book that was horror and literary fiction I wanted it to deliver, over and over again the whole way though, fear, suspense, and feeling."

Knox will be joined by fellow Victoria University Press authors Amy Head and Danyl Mclauchlan in the hour-long interactive talk facilitated by former Wairarapa College student Kirsten McDougall.

McDougall was a winner of The Long and the Short of It short story competition in 2011, and author of novel The Invisible Rider which was Kate de Goldi's book of 2012 (Saturday Morning, Radio NZ), and one of the NZ Listener's top 2012 reads.

Writers in the Vines is part of Kokomai's literary programme devised by David Hedley of Hedley's Bookstore in Masterton.

Other authors coming to the Wairarapa to speak include popular columnist Steve Braunias, who has won over 20 journalism awards, the Montana Book Award, fellowships to Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship.

Braunias will discuss his new book - Civilisation: 20 Places on the Edge of the World on Saturday, October 19 in Featherston.

Local Wairarapa bloggers turned writers Jared Gulian (Moon Over Martinborough) and Johanna Knox (A Forager's Treasury) talk about how to turn your blog into a book while the festival will conclude with one of one of New Zealand's best known contemporary writers Lloyd Jones, who in this discussion with journalist Mark Reason, will delve into his life as portrayed in his new book A History of Silence: A Memoir.

Kokomai will involve 100 shows and 30 workshops across Wairarapa from October 18-27.