Good, well-written stories that go to the heart of a reader and touch the truth of any human experience, including sex, can help a young mind rise above smut.

Everything from slice-of-life realism through to surrealistic flights of fancy are on display in the second week of the Short+Sweet Festival.

A teen novel that follows a boy's journey from his small rural East Coast home to an elite Auckland school has picked up the top prize at this year's New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.

Inequality means watching people close to you.

New Zealand has become a richer country in the past 30 years.

Your latest play Intimacies is about how technology is warping our lives and relationships - how is it affecting you?

1. Is this new book the most political work you have done?

For acclaimed Kiwi Pacific author Albert Wendt, writing is like breathing.

He's exhibited his work at the prestigious Venice Biennale, become a YouTube sensation, and now New York-based Kiwi kinetic artist Joseph Herscher has been invited to exhibit his works on one of America's most famous boulevards - Sesame Street.

It is never difficult to find contemporary events that point to the relevance of Titus Andronicus, but Shakespeare's reflections on the extremes of human cruelty are given particular poignancy by the recent murder of a young soldier on a London str